I need help with a hug horse problem!?

Question

am in love with a horse at my barn. She came maybe about 4-6 months ago and had some problems but they were all fixable (like bobbing her head). But she has just been acting up for the past 3 months. I stopped riding her for a while because we had been trying to hard to fix her during my lessons that we wouldn't work on my riding.

She doesn't like to stand still, or trot slowly, she over-reacts if you squeeze her and won't canter in a line, she just spirals inward.

I rode her this morning, she freaked out when i squeezed for the canter, its almost like she prefers for you to just click at her to make her go. Anyways, she got all excited and got strong and threw in a tiny, almost excited buck, and like usual, wouldn't stay on the rail, i didn't try as hard as i should have though, because it was a challenge to ride the bumpy canter alone.

I need to find a trainer in the MD area that is inexpensive who can work with this with me. Or does anyone know why she does this?

Answer 1

I agree with the round pen or lungeing before you ride.  I also think you would benefit a great deal from working more on getting control of her hindquarters, and working on lateral movement before you canter her again.  Until she can be two tracked diagonally across the arena to the left and the right, and perform some shoulder in-out exercises at the walk and trot, I'd forget about cantering.  Years ago, I worked with a dressage trainer when I was polishing up a western show horse with similar habits.  It was the best thing I had ever done, and the results were amazing.  If you have access to a less expensive dressage trainer (good luck with that) I'd go that direction.  Or, get a video on basic dressage that will teach you how to do it.  Then, when you succeed at the lateral work, you will have much better control over her when you canter.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, her problem is her life.  She is ridden by many different people and probably none of them are able to communicate with her in a consistent manner that she can understand.  As a result, she acts out because of frustration and inability to determine what people want from her.  This is a situation often with horses ridden by multiple riders and is so sad for the horse.  She is a horse who is not happy in her work, and who could blame her.  As long as there are so many people riding her, you can't fix the problem unless you fix all the riders as well.  It is really not a horse problem, it's a people problem.  Be careful so you don't get hurt.