^^^With some horses without a lot of "try", you take what you can get some days. I've had a mare like that. If you tried to pick a fight and make her be perfect all the time, boy howdy, she'd bring it. I took her to a local reining trainer and he helped me figure out a way through the backdoor of her brain. Sometimes you just wait crap out.


Zelika wrote:

Well, my boyfriends theory is that I'm trying to do to much too fast, and the fact that we both (me and the horse) have the mentality of mules isn't helping us either. I'm used to working with green horses, even the older ones (that's part of my job), but he unlike anything I've ever worked with before

I don't plan on putting my spurs on to ride him again, if my bf can get him to go like that without spurs and without hardly kicking him I really don't think there's a reason to wear them. If he's as much like me as my bf says he is, the spurs are just making him worse. I'll try to get the bf out there to actually watch me on him (and hopefully he can figure out my phone so he can record it). Although hopefully by then I'll have figured it out and you guys won't get to watch me make an ass of myself!


Yeah, I think he'd get pretty sullen at this point with spurs. Sometimes with greenies like this you have to start loping first yourself, if that makes sense. You ask more with you seat, maybe flop your reins a bit and loose bumps with your legs rather than kicking. (Heh. Pretend you're on top in missionary position ) Once he figures out the whole gas pedal thing, then you can start worrying about the lateral stuff. You can be working on lateral positions to set him up for leads later at a walk and trot at this point. I wouldn't even worry too much if he drops his shoulder in right now. You can worry about that later once he starts figuring out how to move off your leg.
I'd also work a LOT on the ground on a longeline and ground driving. Get him to the point where as soon as you have him set up right and start kissing (or whatever verbal cue you make to let him know it's time to lope), he steps into it. They can learn an awful lot of body position and balance with just a halter and longeline that will show up under saddle later.


Last Edited By: AFPhoenix Sep 23 08 10:36 PM. Edited 1 times.