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Horse Behavior and Training

Stopping on the trail - newly developed bad habit

By:

Tinker

Date:

2011-Feb-09 at 12:50PM

I'm having trouble with the 10-yr old Irish Cob mare I'm riding on a regular basis. She has recently developed a bad habit: When we go trailriding, she walks fine for 0.5 mile and then suddenly stops. She doesn't want to continue although her mother mare is on the trails with her. I've used the Dually halter from the ground to get her to move forward. After another 200-300 metres, I was able to get back on and continue riding as if nothing had happened. She recently had a fall (probably on ice, we're talking German winter here) out on the paddock, resulting in a cut on the front leg. Plus, she also gets various riders during the week. She is not a horse hacking out on her own, she's more on the cautious side. What can I do to get that bad habit of stopping out of her mind?

Tinker 2011-Feb-14 at 03:03PM

This is what helped me:
1) Letting the injury heal
2) Waiting until the ice melted
3) Working with the Dually halter on in the arena (ground work) - basic stuff like stopping, backing up, trail -- demonstrating leadership to the horse
4) Being patient. When I went out on the trails again, keeping calm helped. The horse didn't stop once, she was totally back to 'normal'.

Miriam (Holland&Germany) 2011-Feb-14 at 05:18PM

Hi Tinker,
Was your mare in season? This reminds me of the behavior of a mare on "heat".
Great you solved your problem, sometimes it helpes to write it down and come to the essence of it.
Happy trails,
Miriam

Rudi - Pratteln, Switzerland 2011-Feb-14 at 09:08PM

Dear Tinker
I still wonder why the horse stopped. Was it from fear or the horse was testing the leadership? Looking at your list of what you have done it was probably the second one. I always wonder whether it could be possible to see the difference measuring the heart frequency. Fear: high frequency (>100). Behaviour problem: low frequency (<100).
Thank you for your interesting contribution.

Matthias Lochthofen 2011-Feb-24 at 01:30AM

Hi Tinker,
Had the same thing with a Palomino Gelding on the trail. He is the boy friend of the leading mare from a mob of about 90 horses living on a horse riding property.
He just stopped, let all others go and we waited, but for what? He is used to fly with me and I think he got bored just being one of the others, didn't like it. Once he got aware the group has moved enough (1.5mile) he wanted to go.
Instead to continue, I pulled off the saddle, let him grace and had a nap with him. Later on we rode cross country back to the farm with no vices.
Next day I started some ground work with him, that required brain, logs on the ground and stepping over in various distance, walking back in a defined path by logs, starting to learn back hand turn...
Have established a more interesting way for trail riding with tasks and he loves it. He became a much easier to handle horse and other people like to take him for a ride now.
Cheers,
Matthias