My horse got aggressive while saddling, and I don't know why?

Question

I went out to ride my 3 year old appaloosa gelding this afternoon. He is normally pretty cooporative, even though I don't get a chance to ride him much. He was fine when I took him out of the pasture...then he saw the saddle. He started freaking out when I first started to put the bridle on him...basically he kept lifting his head and shaking it and stuff. Once we got it on him, we started saddling him. When I went to tighten the cinch strap, he started trying to kick us and kept backing away from us. We had the lead rope on his halter, we scolded him and tried to calm him down. We eventually got the saddle tight and I led him into a different pasture to ride. When I got on, he started doing the same thing...backing up, trying to kick me off, etc. He has never acted this bad when I ride...most of the time I have to give him a little pop on the rear to get him to act right, but he normally does great. I checked him for sore spots on his back when I took the saddle off...he seems completely fine. Why was he acting so scared, and what can I do to make him act better? I am going to try to ride again tomorrow, and I really don't want this to continue happening. What can I do?

Answer 1

try checking where his girth goes he might have a girth sore or you might need to get the chiropractor in to check if his back is out.

Answer 2

If the saddle's new (even if u hav used it a couple times before) it may be pinching him. I haven't got my own saddle for my horse, I use two of my riding teacher's. I'd been using one of them for nearly a year when she started to play up when I would go to put it on and do the girth up. We figured that it was pinching her and so we changed saddles and since then she's gotten better. She was still a little hesitant at first (becoz of the last saddle no doubt) but she slowly got better again.

I think when I rode her at a gymkhana the english saddle (i ride western) pinched her a bit tho coz she's started playing up again. I'm not gonna ride her in english for a while and she was overweight then so i'll wait till she's lost weight before i use it again coz i don't want her to get pinched.

But yeh, the saddle might be pinching him

hope this helps :)

Answer 3

His back may be sore, so you should look into seeing a chiropractor. My horse did a similar thing, and we found out it was because of his back. He also may be having a flashback. If you haven't had him all three years, he may have been treated badly while someone was being careless when taking the saddle and bridle off.  

Answer 4

It sounds like the saddle is causing pain, and at this point, he is anticipating the pain when he sees the saddle. If you can get it on him, saddle him without a pad and ride for a bit.  You can put baby powder under the saddle first to make this more obvious.  When you remove the saddle, lift it up carefully and check the wet areas...they should run evenly from front to back where the bars of the saddle tree rest on his back.  If they don't, the saddle fit is wrong, and pressure is not evenly distributed as it should be.

Answer 5

Sounds like there may be an issue with the way the saddle is fitting him.  The next time you saddle him, don't put the bridle on first.  Just saddle him up, SLOWLY and don't cinch him up tightly right off the bat.  Once you saddle him, go off have a soda and relax for a bit.  Let him just stay there tied up with the saddle on.  

After you have your soda and have taken your potty break, go back and slowly tighten the cinch.

Then go check out your bridle.  Untie him, bridle him and go for a ride that will make his back sweat underneath the saddle pad/blanket.

After you're done riding, pull the saddle and pad/blanket off and LOOK very closely to make sure all areas are sweaty.  If they aren't then something's not fitting right on your saddle.  If they are okay, then think about just pulling him out of the pasture, saddling him up and letting him STAND at the hitching post for several hours at a time...

Continue to do this for several weeks and see if that doesn't help him remember his manners.

BTW Bridle ALWAYS goes on the horse AFTER you saddle, unless you think you're a cowboy and drop a rein so the horse ground ties while being brushed and saddled.

Answer 6

Rosi M and galloppal have this problem pegged.  No need for me to be redundant.  Listen to them and follow exactly what they are advising you to do...you will get to the root of the problem if you do...it is obviously a pain issue caused by your new saddle, and it is showing up at an appropriate time.  You may not get to ride when you want to, you don't want to do damage that will take you weeks to undo, so listen to these two and your problem will be taken care of.

Answer 7

Brand new saddles are very stiff. I've seen many horses who do fine the first time, but after that, they are so sore that they seem like a totally different horse. Please have the fit checked again, and in the meantime, I wouldn't push the riding in that saddle. One horse I worked with needed more than a month off after being ridden in a new saddle that wasn't just right.

Bridling also means riding, associated with the saddle, which is clearly not feeling good.

Remember, horses think like horses, and their behavior, even when it doesn't make total sense to us, is communication.

Usually, this kind of behavior means pain of some sort. Whether it was inflicted by a person, the saddle or if he did something to twist his body and he's just uncomfortable. Punishing and scolding may not be effective when he's clearly trying to communicate that something isn't okay in his world. Imagine if someone poked one of your bruises and when you turned to say "Ow! Don't do that!", they just scolded you, straightened you out and continued to poke you!

My advice would be to go visit him as often as you can without stressing your life out, and spend more time being friends with him. If every time he sees you he has to be saddled and ridden, when the rest of his life is relaxing in pasture, this may cause him some stress. Groom him in ways that are pleasurable. Check his body for bug bites and other itchy, uncomfortable things. Consider whether or not he may have a sore in his mouth, etc. Be his friend before you expect him to come out of "pasture mode" to be your riding horse.

How you approach him can make all the difference! Here are a few steps you can take on the way to see your horse that, when practiced regularly, can cultivate a really good, consistent atmosphere and attitude that lets your horse feel good about being with you:

1. Relax your body and breathe. Slow yourself down and notice how your body is feeling. Are you sore? Feel good? Tension in your shoulders or stomach? Remember that your horse is living at a much slower pace than you, and do your best to slow yourself as if you have been living in a pasture, just being a horse.

2. Notice how you are feeling. Are you anxious? Rushed? Do you feel pressured in any way? Are you hungry or thirsty? Are you really excited? You don't have to change anything, you don't have to feel any different than you do. But when you are aware of how you feel, your horse actually notices. When we know more about ourselves, our horses feel safer with us, they have more space to trust that we are available to hear them, to listen to their communication. Just be exactly how you are, but know what's going on for you that day so you are less likely to get it all tangled up in your horse time.

3. Put together a gentle plan for how you want your time to go. How do you want your greeting to feel? Do you want to share a nice moment with your horse right off the bat? What pace to you want to take while you groom and tack up? Imagine yourself leading and mounting exactly how you want it to go, and feel that good feeling in your body, before you even get to your horse. How will you know when it's time to walk? To trot? Canter? Come back down to the walk? Feel it all before you do it. When you are prepared in this way, your horse will feel it. He will feel that you have a trustworthy plan, and it will be much easier for him to follow your lead. He will feel that you feel good about what you're doing.

4. How do you want to feel when you are finished and on your way home? Before you even get to your horse, let yourself feel the comfort, excitement and success of having a wonderful time with your horse. Let that feeling wash all over your body so that it's the feeling you carry with you as you carry your halter to fetch him from the pasture.

Horses feel what we have going on in our bodies. As you develop a consistent practice to prepare yourself for greeting your horse, preparing yourself to partner with him, he will notice this consistency and you will very soon have cultivated a wonderful, open-minded space that let's your horse feel like, "Hey! My person is here! This is going to feel good!"

All of that is preparation for what is to come. Compassionate training, listening when he says, "This is not okay with me" and not pushing him further, and truly enjoying yourself when you're with him, even if it means you don't ride, will all help prevent this behavior from continuing to happen, especially if you don't see him every day.

Answer 8

Well he is 3 and an appaloosa which isn't a good combination. I would expect it to be pretty stubborn.

It could well be that the saddle doesn't fit properly and is pinching him.

Answer 9

You may want to check your saddle fit.  It may be making him sore and so he associated pain with the saddle.  Have an experienced professional evaluate whether you saddle is fitting correctly, not hitting him in the loin, pinching his withers, that sort of thing.  He also may have done something to cause himself pain, pulled a muscle or be sore otherwise. Have him checked out, or try riding with just a bareback pad and see if it makes a difference.

Answer 10

Hmm

Did he recently have any bad experiences being saddled or bridled or ridden? There may have been something rubbing on his back last time you settled him.

Next time, halter him and lead him to a different spot to saddle him. Tye him, and give him a really good grooming. Keep the saddle and bridle out of view. When you are done grooming him, have someone bring you the saddle and bridle while you distract him with a treat or something. Slowly and calmly and gently saddle and bridle him. Hope that works.... Good luck

EDIT- This is a bit far-fetched, but what if some kids hopped on his back on day and decided to gallop him around the field? It happened to someone I knew, they took her mare out in the middle of the night, now she is scared of one spot on a trail.