Ask The Horse Trainer!
Email training questions to David at dave@practicalequinetraining and each Galloping Grape Newsletter he will select from submissions and provide an answer. Please use the subject line of “Galloping Grape Training Question.”
Question: When I am on the trail riding my horse with other horses, my horse seems to care a lot more about the other horses than paying attention to me. When they speed up, mine does, and when we get too far away my horse really jigs a lot and wants to bolt to them. How do I deal with this?
David’s Answer: There are multiple ways to deal with this problem, you may want to read the answer to my question in the Feb Galloping Grape newsletter about how to improve stopping and response to your reins to help your horse rate their gaits and foot speed in each gait. One of the most fun and low-key ways to work on this problem though is to enlist the aid of your trail buddies and play separation games on the trail. Your horse’s problem is called separation anxiety. Horses are herd animals and frequently when they feel insecure, which of course is their natural state as prey animals, they look for a herd to be a part of—which of course is any other horse around. Your horse is telling you that it is fearful by itself, and is not looking very hard to you for security. But, we don’t really need to worry about all that, we just need to help your horse feel better about being by itself, or at least further from the others. Now keep in mind, this is not quite the same as buddy anxiety. After all, you want to ride with other folks and their horses, but you also want to choose your distance, your gait, and be able to ride away from them should you desire.
The first thing you can do is simply increase the distance you are asking your horse to follow behind the horse in front. The polite and good trail etiquette distance is one horse length. At the canter you may want more to permit stopping distance should the person in front of you suddenly stop. Ask your horse to increase that distance by one foot, and stay there. Each time he begins to get closer, ask him to back off and immediately give him a release when he responds, at the distance you want him to keep. Over time, slowly increase that distance, as long as he is comfortable. Work your way up to a consistent 5 horse lengths, on a loose rein. Now for the games.
Play leap frog: Everyone is at a walk. The person in front signals a whoa, everyone stops. The person and horse in the rear then walks by everyone to assume the lead. At regular intervals, change the leader in this way. The more frequent the better. Each horse will get more comfortable. Work your way up to the trot, so the person in the rear trots by everyone standing still. Eventually the rear person canters to the lead. When everyone’s comfortable, you can do this exercise at the trot, where the leader calls for a slow to walk but the “trailer” stays at the trot to pass everyone and assume the lead. Eventually work your way up to the canter, leader slows to the trot and trailer stays at the canter to resume the lead. This exercise is also very good for horses that prefer riding in one position or another in the string.
Play working horse: This exercise can be combined with the one above. The leader signals a whoa. Everyone stays where they are while the leader presses up the trail a bit and selects a pretend job to do with his horse. Could be circle a tree. Could be back an “L” shape and “park” perpendicular to the trail. Walk over a log. Sidepass off the trail like closing a gate, sidepass back onto the trail. Use your imagination. The idea is to take the horse out to the edge of its comfort distance from the herd, but give it a job to do, a purpose for leaving the herd, ask it to respond to your requests. Then walk back to the herd, turn around, and the trailer comes up to assume the lead position. The new trail leader takes the group down the trail and picks a new job site later. You can also use a variation where each horse/rider team must “follow the leader” and perform the same job the leader just demonstrated, in this case the leader goes to the rear to permit each person to do the job in order. When everyone has done it, the trailer comes up to take the lead, and so forth.
Starburst exercise: There are multiple variants depending on your trail layouts. The easiest is for each horse and rider team to take turns in the lead and trailer position, can even be a variant on the above exercise. The leader signals a stop, everyone stops, but she rides ahead (first walking, later trot, later canter away) until her horse reaches its comfort distance or out of sight. Then she returns to the group at the same gait she left it at. In one variant, at the same time she leaves ahead, the trailer turns around and leaves the same way but back the way they came, to their horse’s comfort distance or out of sight. In another variant, at every trail intersection you come to, a different horse/rider team goes a different direction in all possible directions, then returns to the intersection to reform the group.
Left behind: This one is for when your horse is getting pretty comfortable with separation. In this case, you are in the lead position. You stop, and everyone goes by you and goes a set distance (number of paces, like 20), or until you call ahead (determined by when you feel your horse is beginning to get uncomfortable). Then they all stop, and you walk to catch up. You may also turn around and go the other direction, but the group needs to know how many paces to press ahead before stopping. They should stop and wait for you to rejoin them eventually. It is important at first that your horse be asked to walk to catch up to the group, or you can worsen their separation anxiety—if you ask for them to trot or canter to quickly get back to the group, your horse may think you’re telling them it is much more important for them to be with the herd than to be by themselves with you.
Now let your imagination go, and invent more separation games. The whole idea is to ask your horse to focus on you and your requests, give them something to do and occupy their minds, someplace to go by themselves, but reward them by returning to the herd. Over time, your horse will be happy to go out with any group and still pay attention to you and your requests.
The above should work for 95% of people and their horses, but if it doesn’t for you and your horse, email me or call me. And don’t forget, if you have a particular problem plaguing you, just “Ask the Trainer.”
David Yauch
Practical Equine Training
dave@practicalequinetraining.com
540-229-4255
www.practicalequinetraining.com