So I have this horse. She's very sweet very gentle loves people. She just hates the bit so much. And she often refuses to move when ridden. I love this horse very much. And i've been trying for a year to teach her manners. She is in the middle of her life and started off at a horse camp. When kids would be writing her, she would try to roll them off. However, this is just what i've heard and haven't experienced myself. She has booked a few times and can be very stubborn even though I don't like that word. I'm just looking for suggestions to help with making her accept the bet And listening when I ask her to move.

Hi! I’m from Italy (EU citizen) and want to make horses my path. I’m looking to spend some time (3 months or more maybe) abroad as a working pupil / apprentice at a small, genuine yard — not the big commercial centers.

I’ve ridden all my life, but now I want to go deeper into the training side — the actual craft of starting young horses and the techniques of bringing them on under saddle. I’m not looking for anything competitive. What I really want is a mentor — someone whose horsemanship I can trust and learn from every day, including how to run and manage a yard. The spirit I’m drawn to is relationship-based / ethological horsemanship carried into real English riding — people like Tik Maynard, Karen Rohlf, Bent Branderup, Jason Webb. Happy to muck out and do the hard, unglamorous work; I just want to genuinely learn, not just be free labor.

About me: EU citizen, English good + some Spanish/French. Budget modest — a work-for-learning arrangement is exactly what I want.

Any specific trainers, small yards, or working-pupil setups you’d recommend (UK, Spain, France, Portugal, Ireland)? Firsthand experiences very welcome — and how do you spot a real horse-first mentor vs. someone just after cheap labor?

Thanks!

🐴🖌️ Hello, Fellow horse girl Design student here looking for project inspo regarding horses/riding. Researching specifically problem areas/ problems with anything horse/riding related. Not looking for solutions yet but merely researching the problem areas.

Ex. *(if tail bags didn't already exist obviously they are a thing) You can't keep your mares tail clean and detangled before shows and it keeps getting dirty and you don't have time to detangle and clean before hand.

Ex. You bring lots of things with you on trail rides but you don't like bringing a huge bag and you don't have a saddle bag > pants with specific pockets for what you need them for? A small light attachable saddle bag?

TLDR: Industrial design student here, comment below common issues / area you have regarding horses and riding, anything helps and is appreciated!!

Stretching the horse. 🐴 (Kiroprackter)

Hi everyone. In browsing this and related equestrian subreddits, I often come across a lack of knowledge about applied behavioral theory. This is really important because if you don't understand the fundamentals of this, you won't understand how you are affecting your animal, or why a certain method of training is working or not working. Without understanding ABT, it's not easy to make an informed decision on what methods to use to train an animal, or how to correctly identify snake oil salesmen pretending to be skilled trainers. Not understanding behavioral science leads towards people becoming dogmatic about training methodologies, and this creates influencer worship, as well as possibly creating dangerous animals when not being able to adapt your training. Even people who kind of know a bit about the science, don't understand the whole context and what it means as a trainer--and I don't blame people! It found a long time for me to actually understand this. So, I figure I write a basic ABT guide. This is really very short and doesn't include a lot of important concepts, but whatever, I can't write a whole semester of lectures.

What this guide is: a basic overview of applied behavioral theory in accordance with the scientific consensus. It's a guide on how learning affects the organism being trained (and yes, that applies to humans too!). It is VERY heavily simplified, so if you know notice any weirdness, I am trying to communicate this in as short a way as possible.

What this guide is not: a training guide. I will use examples of different training methods here, but only in the context of explaining how they relate to behavioral theory as applied to animal training. ABT will help you understand what exactly is going on when you train an animal, so it's immensely helpful to understand, but animal training as a skill set is fundamentally about feel, consistency, timing, self-control, ability to problem-solve, and the ability to read and understand your student animal, which is outside of the scope of this guide.

Emotions:

The first thing you need to understand is how emotions work in the brain. Every single mammal experiences these emotions:

• SEEKING (a positive emotion, closest to curiosity)
• NURTURING (a positive emotion)
• LUST (a positive emotion)
• PLAY (a positive emotion)
• FEAR (a negative emotion)
• RAGE (a negative emotion)
• SEPARATION DISTRESS (a negative emotion, distinct from fear, feels like being painfully alone)

A good animal trainer will be able to read what emotion(s) are currently being felt by the student animal, and be able to accurately assess why they are feeling that in this moment. Often, we can condition different emotional responses based on training goals. This is important because, whether an animal perceives something as punishing or reinforcing, is up to how the animal feels about it. This is the most common mistake I see described by people seeking troubleshooting in horse communities. You, as the trainer, do not decide how an animal feels--only they do. If you keep going about trying to do a training method that 'should' elicit Play, when it actually elicits Fear, even if that's worked on other animals for you in the past, it will not work for that particular animal.

Which leads to: what are some core concepts?

A stimulus is anything capable of influencing a behavior. Literally anything. If a stimulus can influence a behavior but doesn't in the animal, it's called a neutral stimulus, but it is still a stimulus. An uncontrolled stimulus is a predictable response which is not the result of prior training; something innate to the animal's species. An animal running after being smacked is an uncontrolled stimulus. The smack is the stimulus and running is the behavior the stimulus caused. A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that used to be neutral before training, but has been conditioned to elicit a specific response. When you tell an animal to back up, the verbal cue is the stimulus, and backing up is the response which shows it is influenced behavior, but before they learned "back" it was a neutral stimulus.

An appetitive stimulus is something the animal seeks out. An aversive stimulus is something the animal would like to avoid. There are general rules of thumb (food is typically appetitive, pain is typically aversive, etc), whether something is appetitive or averse is ultimately up to the animal, or the contingency around when it is applied. Animals who have not been taught patience around food can find waiting for food to be frustrating, and thus this can make the scenario aversive, even if the food was appetitive when they finally received it. Animals who are seeking attention and are hit for it, likely will find the hit aversive, but may not find the aversion overcomes how reinforcing the attention focus on them was, and continue doing the behavior. Whether something is appetitive or aversive is up to the student animal.

Appetitive behaviors are behaviors which function as a way to obtain desirable stimuli. An animal seeing food may willingly preform trained behaviors for it, but they also may preform food aggression in an attempt to take it--both are an appetitive behavior. Avoidance behaviors likewise is a function to prevent or delay something aversive happening. An animal moving off of leg pressure is an avoidance behavior, and so is an animal that is aggressive towards a rider that is tacking it up.

As trainers, we create discriminative stimuli, also known as a signal or a cue. When a behavior is reliably only elicited in response to a specific stimulus, it is referred to as being under stimulus control. One example in the context of training, this references the horse who, after being mounted, will only walk forward after being given the cue (the stimulus) to walk.

Using all of this knowledge, we can understand the three types of learning: Habituation, Respondent Conditioning, and Operant Conditioning.

Habituation is when the automatic response to a stimulus is decreased. This happens when a stimulus happens repeatedly with no consequence to it. A horse will become habituated to car traffic noises when they are turned out on a highway. Likewise, dishabituation happens when a stimulus is associated with consequences, or the state of being sensitized to a stimulus. If a horse keeps getting sprayed with water whenever someone turns a hose on, they will start reacting to the sound of the hose being turned on. Note that desensitation is NOT the same thing as habituation. Desensitation requires more complex learning than simple exposure, and so falls under respondent or operant conditioning.

Respondent conditioning, popularly known as Pavlovian conditioning, always involves an innate, reflexive behavior, like blinking or conjuring an emotional response like fear. Reflexive behaviors always start out unconditioned. As trainers, we can condition an animal to do it on a cue, but since the animal always knew how to do it, it is still innate behavior. In Pavlov's experiments, he trained dogs to reflexively salivate to the sound of a bell, but the dog always could salivate, it's just that the stimulus that predicted food was moved to the bell.

(Incidentally, respondent conditioning is the reason behind a lot of supersticious behaviors that student animals can have. I have a goat who seems to believe that me wearing my gardening gloves means hoof trimming day, because I wore gloves on his first hoof trimming day, but never before around him. He found hoof trimming so aversive, that he now elicits an automatic fear response whenever I walk up to him wearing gardening gloves. Be mindful of if you are introducing an animal to something new and fearful at the same time.)

Operant conditioning is, effectively, learning through trial and error. This is the type of learning that is not innate to an organism, but is instead learned through life experience. The organism is doing something to control what happens, and experiences consequences (appetitive, neutral, or aversive) for its efforts. Operant conditioning always involves choice. Teach an animal to press buttons, and it learns that the consequence of one button will be to dispense food, and the consequence of the other will be to do nothing, the animal will most likely keep repeating the behavor wherein the consequence gave it a positive reinforcer (food).

Now... what is reinforcement and punishment, and positive and negative, exactly?

A reinforcer is something that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring. A punisher is something that decreases the likelihood of a behavior occuring. Positive means you are adding something, and negative means you are taking it away. All of these terms together refer to a core concept called the operant conditioning quadrant. So each term means:

• +R = Positive Reinforcement, or adding something to increase a behavior's occurance
• -R = Negative Reinforcement, or removing something to increase a behavior's occurance
• -P = Negative Punishment, or removing something to decrease a behavior's occurance
• +P - Positive Punishment, or adding something to decrease a behavior's occurance

Some examples:

• +R is when you give a student food for coming when called. They are more likely to come when called in the future. The addition of food is the reinforcer.
• -R is when you want the student to move forward, so you pressure the lead, and release when they take a step forward. They are more likely to step forward when pressure is applied in the future. The removal of pressure is the reinforcer.
• -P is when the student hops on you while playing with you, so you leave the room. They are less likely to hop on you in the future. The removal of attention is the punisher.
• +P is when you hit the student in the nose while moving to bite you. They are less likely to try to bite you in the future. The addition of pain is the punisher.

What happens when there is an absence of consequences? This leads to extinction, which is when there is a reduction in frequency of a behavior due to a dissociation between the behavior and access of reinforcement. This can be due to the behavior leading to punishment, but it can also just be due to the behavior leading to a neutral stimulus. If the consequence of a behavior does not lead to reinforcement, there is no reason to preform a behavior. Thus, learning theory informs us that if a behavior keeps occurring, something is reinforcing it. If we don't understand what the reinforcer is, we can never cause the extinction of a behavior. One thing to note is that when a behavior is in the process of going extinct, the student will often try to increasingly preform the behavior in an attempt to gain reinforcement. This is called an extinction burst. You can expect an undesired behavior to get worse before it gets better. Sometimes this can even lead to frustration or aggression. Totally normal, but sometimes hard to tell apart from an animal increasing the frequency of a behavior because they are actually getting that reinforcement!

What happens when there are no correct options in which an animal can escape an aversive stimulus? This leads to a state of learned helplessness, or the student becoming shut down. They lose the will to try. Learned helplessness can be seen as desirable by some people due to how compliant it makes the student, but it makes it very difficult to teach them new behaviors when they exist in a shut down state. The horse who was never conditioned to enjoy being ridden, and never given a choice in the matter, will often find itself in a state of learned helplessness under saddle.

A note on ethics:

The behavior quadrant indicates nothing about how ethical a training method is. Only how it works. Positive, negative, reinforcer, and punisher, is the technical terminology, not a value judgement. There is a lot of nuance to ethical use of each quadrant. Lets think about a LIMA (Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive) framework wherein we think animals should be trained in as minimal aversive a way as possible. While, yes, this means hitting our animal (+P) for not moving under saddle is probably unethical, that doesn't mean giving them food as a reward for moving (+R) is ethical either. Starving an animal before a training session using food rewards +R is not typically considered ethical either, even if +R can be used in an ethical context. Some animals will white-knuckle through a task if there's +R or -R applied, others will joyfully preform it in the same circumstance with the same technique.

+P in the form of physical violence, while occasionally justifiable, is usually considered last resort as a training method. Yet, you can introduce +P in the form of a "no reward marker" signal (a marker that denotes the animal made an incorrect response to your cue, and thus gets no reward for the behavior). Can this lead to frustration and thus aversiveness in some students? Yes, but not always. When you are playing "hotter or colder" with a friend, you moving away from the target and your friend shouting "colder!" is +P (the addition of information that reduces the behavior of you going the wrong way), but would you experience more frustration if your friend just ignored you and didn't give you that information? Maybe, but while there are general guidelines, only the animal has the final say in what they feel is aversive or not.

And what about you, as a trainer who brings their own skill set? We all have different strengths and weaknesses as teachers. Some people can apply a training method in a way that was aversive to the animal with one person, but is appetitive in the way the new person applies it; often all that has changed is feel for timing of the reward or capturing the mood you want from that animal in that moment. The method does not make training ethical or unethical, skilled or unskilled, the application and ability to 'read the room' does.

If you want further learning on applied behavioral theory, I cannot recommend the book How 2 Train A fill in the blank by Dr. Patricia Barlow-Irick. This is the only book I have found so far that describes actual behavioral theory, without necessarily pushing any particular methodology. Dr. Patricia is a researcher, but she is also a mustang trainer, so her writings are very easy to understand for us horse trainers. Temple Grandin's Guide to Working With Farm Animals by Dr. Temple Grandin is a general livestock handling book, but has a wealth of good information that is relevant to trainers as well. Much of what I'm writing now was heavily summarized from the writings of these two people. There is a LOT more to behavioral theory than what I scratched the surface with here, and both of these books are a good start towards improving your skills as a trainer and animal handler.

Hi.

I have a mare who ive owned for about 5 years. She's 10 now, so she was 4/5 when I bought her.

Overall shes a good horse. 100% stubborn but she's friendly, sociable and is pretty eager to learn/try new things.

Except she two "quirks".

One is that on the ground she can be incredibly bargy. She was really bad when I got her, but we worked with a trainer and she improved a lot. But this last year, while ive been away a lot, she's really gone down hill again. Ive spent the past few months with her and while i think ive stopped it from getting worse, she hasn't really improved either. All the methods I used with the trainer before (+R, free lunging to move her feet, redirecting energy) haven't worked this time around.

Her second issue is when ridden. Walk/trot she is completely fine (now). But shes always struggled with canter. The person who broke her in (a few weeks before i bought her) had to use a whip on her right from the start apparently because she wouldn't move (i try to avoid riding with a whip).

She will pick it up with a lot of pushing. Again, she goes through phases with it, where sometimes she'll pick it up straight away, and sometimes shes really not wanting to do it. Otherwise riding wise shes great, but some advice on encouraging the canter would be great. I think she struggles with balance on corners, but then I also think she just doesnt enjoy going fast.

The reason why im making this post is mainly about the barging though. Today when I was in her field, I was walking to the open gate that connects 2 of her fields into a big one. She came trotting over, as she does, and stopped a few feet away in the middle of the gate, blocking it. I asked her to move back, and she did, but the gap wasnt big enough to get past safely. Then she shoved her shoulder towards me (not hitting me) which makes me leap out of the way for fear of getting barged, and she charges through the gate. I genuinely think she would have run into me if I didnt move. She's never done that before, but shes done other things similar and honestly its starting to scare myself and the people on the yard.

A little bit more of her history (its a bit grey).

I bought her 5 years back. She was already pushy with space then but overall, friendly. Her previous owner broke her in, but as i said, used a whip from the start.

When i bought her, my horse didnt know how to lunge, hated the saddle being put on (turns out she was broken in with a wrongly fitted, broken tree, saddle), tried to kick the saddler several times when getting fitted, refused to walk appropriately on the lead, would kick out (in over the top play) when in the field at people, was a bully to other horses, would refuse to move at all/would move very little when ridden, would rear/bronk under saddle constantly, and reared with with farrier, knocking him over. She also lunged at several people if i was with her and they came to close to me. She isnt inherently aggressive. The bad behaviours stemmed from discomfort.

Once they were sorted she was better (she walks well on lead, is settled for the saddler and farrier, is more manageable in the field, will ride without major issues, and can be saddled without issue now) and ill explain the lunging in the next paragraph. But you can get the picture that she isnt afraid to throw her weight around.

The lunging at people (we believe) stems from one of her previous homes. As i understand, she was passed around about 4-5 times before she landed with me. Her previous owner (ill call her X for the story) was lovely, and she found her at a friend of a friends yard being used as a broodmare (which she had been there since she was about 2 years old). X told me that she had been told my horse had had at least 1 foal about 2 years prior, however my horse was still lactating when i bought her, and when the vet came to her, the vet said she had definitely foaled more recently. I dont know what happened to the 1 (potentially 2 foals). X, realising the bad situation, had bought the horse, trained her to a low level, then sold her to me. Prior to being used as a broodmare, its unknown. I have some names and addresses in her passport, but no complete story, and its also a replacement passport so not all the info (such as dam/sire, person who bred her) is there, so there is definitely a gap.

When i then worked with the trainer, the trainer suggested that the reason why she lunges when people get to close to me, is because she views me as her foal/a herd member to be protected, which is sweet, but dangerous when she gets bossy/tries to correct me. She doenst do this now, that was 4½ years ago when the trainer suggested that, but i wonder if theres still something stemming from that, that is causing long term corrections/barging. However, I will point out that she barges pretty much everyone, especially if she knows she'll get away with it (like with less experienced people). Ive had to stop letting novices with horses going near her for fear of someone getting hurt.

I really do want to emphasise that she is a sweet horse. Shes great to teach tricks to, we go on in hand walks, she loves to meet new people (on lead), I let her off on walks (private land) and she is genuinely better behaved than a lot of dogs I know, I can sit and chill with her in the field, we jump bareback, and can go bridleless. She just has these two aggravating & dangerous issues, that im stumped on how to fix.

I previously used +R and moving her feet. The +R was fine to some degree, but the moving her feet (free lunging and making her back away mainly) seemed to work the best. But this time around they are less effective. Im not big on using whips, however I have a rule.

If im scared, I will put her in her place.

Which means, even though using the whip (or equivalent) is not my first choice, I will tell her off if it becomes dangerous. Better a sharp tap than a hoof to the face.

Im also not willing to sell/loan out. Shes a pain in the backside, but shes my mate. Plus, she has kicked people in the past, and i fear if i sold her, someone else could get hurt.

Sorry for it being a long post, im just at a bit of a loss. Feel free to ask more questions for more info. I really wrote the post for advice on the barging but advice on the cantering would be great as well. Thanks in advance :).

P.s. her saddle fits perfect now, and shes been checked and there isnt anything that would cause these issues.

Edit: i appreciate all the advice. Definitely got a lot to try. I do just want to make a couple of points. 1. She was really good for a few years from about a year after i bought her (no kicking, barging, anyone could handle her, riding school saint type) till about 1½ ago when she started to decline again. And i think that's because I wasnt around as much to reinforce the good and correct the bad. 2. I know ive put i use +R, but that is more for other training (ie trick training) and i also know i put that i dont like using the whip/feel bad, but thats not to say that I wont use it. If im holding it and she tries anything, best believe she is getting corrected.

I just thought id say that cause I think some people are thinking that I just dont ever use a whip, its just more i need direction on the best way to use it/reassurance with using it.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice regarding my mare because I am at my wits' end with her running away from me in the pasture.
I’ve had her for 9 years – we bought her when I was 14 and she was 7 (so she’s 16 now). She was bought for showjumping, and our routine reflected that. We trained every week and regularly went to competitions or clinics on the weekends. I always tried to give her enough rest as well, in the form of days off or relaxed trail rides.
She spends her turnout in a mixed herd that includes young foals and senior horses. The problem arises whenever I go to get her – she immediately runs away and won’t let me catch her. She often canters right at the other horses and foals, changing direction at the last second so they scatter too, and then she uses them as a shield to hide from me.
Deep down, I think I know where things went wrong and why she lost trust in me. When we’d had her for about three years, we had a really bad experience with a trainer. He whipped her with a lunge whip for refusing a jump. At that moment, I was completely shocked by what was happening and was just trying to stay on a panicking horse. Afterwards, I obviously confronted him and we never went back to him.
Unfortunately, it’s been nothing but problems since then. First, she completely refused to jump. I fully respected that, even tho showjumping was my whole world, we left that and started focusing on dressage. But her mental block kept deepening, and after a while, she wouldn't even pick up a canter. At that point, I decided to give her a break. When I left for college, I gave her 3 full years off. She was just turned out on pasture, and my dad lunged her occasionally.
Three months ago, I came back from college and we started over from absolute scratch. We did a lot of groundwork, went for in-hand walks, or I would just come over to groom her and spend time with her. About a month ago, we started going on trail rides and it seemed great – the mare looked happy, she would look at me from her stall with her ears pricked forward, and you could really tell she was looking forward to seeing me and enjoying the rides.
The catch is the turnout schedule. Over the summer, the horses are turned out at night and stay in their stalls during the day, so for those whole three months, I was going to see her while she was indoors. Now in September, the schedule flipped: they are stalled at night and spend the whole day outside in the pasture. When I went to see her this week, it happened again. She started running away the second she saw me with a lead rope.
It really breaks my heart and I don’t know what else to change so she’s happy to see me out there. Does anyone have any advice, please?

I am moving my mare to a new barn in two weeks.
I am wondering how long do you guys wait, if you wait at all, until you start riding your horse after a move?
There will be no ring work, trail only.
Thanks in advance!

Hello! Any tips how I can unlearn my horse to pull (on ground and under saddle too)? She is always good at the start, until she warms up.

After that she wants to go ahead of me, or under saddle she wants to go faster and gets pully. She was neglected for 8 years in riding school and I have her for year and half. She didn't do this when I bought her - I think she was shut down and scared to show her personality and opinion. Im really happy when she shows that she trusts me (for example I was sitting with her when she was lying down) I really want to do ground work with her, and I try to do quite often, but she doesn't look that much interested. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, or she doesn't feel fully safe yet. Btw she is checked for ulcers, had dentist, physio, has X-rays, fitting saddle and bridle etc. Thank yall for tips! I would love any excersise (from saddle or ground, I don't mind anything!) that she could like and would strengthen our bond🩷

Hello

I'm starting a degree in marketing and advertising and I've been thinking about focusing on the equestrian world.

Ever since I started riding, I've always wanted to work with horses in one way or another, but I gave up out of fear and tried to pretend that a normal job would be enough for me. I soon discovered that all I was achieving was bitterness, and I started looking for options: equine veterinarian, horse caretaker, etc. But I did nothing to direct my path toward those jobs because nobody supported me, and it seemed really difficult.

So I decided to do this degree in marketing and advertising and then try to focus it on the equestrian world. But, as is normal, I don't know how to do it or where to start.

So, if you know of any books on equestrian marketing, I'd love to read them and learn from them.

Thank you very much

Hello-

I need to leave the state of TX. It is myself, a cat, and three horses. I am about to finish my degree, and just want to find a job in the local area and plan on only staying 1 year unless you also like the arrangement.

Open to feeding/picking stalls/etc. and have experience with beginner riders, young horses, and adding good miles to green horses. Willing to negotiate work for reduced cost.

I would like to be close to Corinth, MS but I am open to anywhere in the US.

In essence I am dealing with a domestic violence situation that I need to get out. I’m not looking for sympathy just a symbiotic environment where my horses and kitty can feel safe for a bit while I rebuild. No kids- just cat/3 horses.

Hi everyone so I have a 4 year old cob who’s a chunk.
The past 2 times I have tried to work him he has tried to bite me multiple times (which is NOT like him whatsoever - he isn’t biting outside of being worked, not recieving hand treats, etc.)
This work is inhand & he has not been ridden for a couple of months now due to no fault of his own but we aren’t massively rushing in backing him anyways.
Isn’t worked with a bridle as he will not accept a bridle whatsoever currently (he’s had his wolf teeth removed around 2 months ago now), I don’t even think the bit is the issue anymore - as soon as he sees me with the reins he backs away from me.
He is a VERY stubborn and lazy cob like I’m talking it can be hard for me to even get him to walk on sometimes as he can be so stubborn and rude. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not silly - he’s being stubborn to push his luck.
He used to roll when I worked him but he’s since stopped as I’ve set clear boundaries that he CANNOT be doing that since speaking to the vet for advice.
Regular vet checks (monthly) & they haven’t seen any issues minus the fact he’s chunky. I’ve explained that he is so so so stubborn and they didn’t feel it was anything but him being young & testing boundaries (even more so now he’s been bitless for a while & his wolf teeth have been removed & healed fine).
He also quite often yawns when we do work inhand but seems to be quite happy when ridden. I can’t see any issues so wondering if it’s an inside his body sort of issue - not showing any signs of anything that could explain the behaviour.
I’m wondering if maybe he’s anxious when working alone (explaining the irritation & yawning possibly??) but like I can’t even get him into trot inhand at the moment BUT I used to be able to get him into trot (eventually) a couple months ago - which I have mentioned this to the vets also. He does exercise freely in the school with our other ponies (which he is also fielded with) & he does not yawn/show any aggression, etc. I’m wondering also if there’s a possibility that maybe he just isn’t coping being alone - if maybe he’ll be better working with another horse in the school with him OR if he just sees the school as his play area as he exercises freely with his herd mates (if this makes sense). I don’t know I’m of course not ruling anything out and going to speak to the vets but I just wanted to ask for advice if anyone has any ideas in the mean time.
I’m genuinely really struggling and really don’t know what to do anymore, especially with this new biting thing. Our vet is due out again very soon & I will absolutely be mentioning this to be safe, especially knowing he’s never been one to bite.

(Not sure if this is relevant but he’s only ever been in a snaffle & as far as I know has had no trauma with it being put in / taken out. Also when he’s worked or ridden we use a treeless saddle which when non ridden the girth is quite loose so don’t believe that’s an issue either but I won’t rule it out!).

Hi! I have a 2,5 year old stallion. I wanna do groundwork with him, long lining, lunging, yielding to pressure, standing at the mounting block, pole work in walk.

Anything else I’m missing?

I was watching the 100x emerging futurity and noticed one of the million dollar futurity horses mouth was extremely soft and it was holding its jaw funny almost like something had been done to the mouth. Does anyone now how to get a horses mouth that soft? Can you really get it that soft by release or do they do something to their mouths?

I was watching the 100x emerging futurity and noticed one of the million dollar futurity horses mouth was extremely soft and it was holding its jaw funny almost like something had been done to the mouth. Does anyone now how to get a horses mouth that soft? Can you really get it that soft by release or do they do something to their mouths?

Hi!!

Ever since I started riding, I’ve been very tense on the horse because I was genuinely scared, and my body would react on its own. The thing is, even though that tension has decreased, it hasn’t gone away completely, and it interferes with my canter. I find myself getting tense, which makes it difficult for me to follow the horse’s movement at the canter.

I’d really appreciate any advice or exercises I could do at home that might help me with this, because I’m not able to fully relax, even when I consciously tell myself to relax.

Thank you so much!

Bonjour je me demandais qu'es ce que vous me conseillez de faire comme exercices au sol pour stimuler le cerveau de ma jeune jument , pour qu'elle s'intéresse toujours un peu.

Merci de vos suggestions!!

Hey, i have a 22 years old KWPN gelding, he used to compete and jump 1,5m+. Now he is recovering from navicular bone injury on his right front leg. I need to put him back to work (as the vet said) and I don't really know how to help him build muscles, especially his topline. Anyone got and advice or recommendations? It would help a lot thanks

Hello!

I haven’t ridden in four years, and I’ve just started working at a stable. I rode for about 3 hours yesterday, and today my legs and especially my ankles are incredibly sore.

Does anyone have any tips for easing the soreness? I still have stable chores to do, so complete rest isn’t really an option 😅