What an attitude!!
First the good news. Jazz went into the lorry with no interim bribery at the first attempt today. I shut the partition, then the ramp, and then I started the engine. And to my surprise I have found that he is genuinely frightened of either the engine noise or the vibration. I had to stay with him to keep him calm. He was plunging about and striking out with his front legs :-0
I unloaded him and he was very good again. He doesn't barge to get out no matter how worried he is, he waits to be untied and led out. I was pretty sure he wouldn't want to get back in again after all that, but he did, and really quickly too. I shut him in again and started the engine again and kept him in there to finish all his breakfast. He was much calmer this time.
So he was a good boy.
Up to that point.
I rode Tia in the barn and she did some really nice work. Changing rein in the walk exercises was a bit of a battle again, but she did them very well once she had made her protests known and been ignored. I'm really getting quite food at not letting her wind me up. She gets a bit stewed up and then seems to be puzzled why I haven't lost my rag and why I'm all cool and calm.
Then I decided to take Jazz out down the road, where he has already been twice before. Well I might have decided that but he was having none of it. He stopped halfway down the hill and refused to walk any further. I got off and he pulled away from me and went up the hill, past the house, and carried on as if he was going to go up to the main A537 - I tell you I was having kittens!
He did stop eventually and I had to walk up and fetch him back down. I got back on and he refused to turn left out of the gate so I turned him right and trotted him up the hill to make him realise that it was harder work that what I had asked him to do. I tried to walk him past the gateway and carry on down the hill but he turned into the yard and there was nothing I could do about it. We did a bit of milling around the yard while I tried to make him go my way and he wouldn't, but when he breasted the galvanised gate to try to get back in to Tia I realised that I was now risking my life.
I got off, and now he would not even lead away from the stables. At this point I opened both yard gates to make sure he would not jump any of them. After many minutes of turning him around in the yard, he did agree that he would walk out and down the road to the left. By keeping him shoulder in towards me, I could get him to walk on. If he gets his head the other way, I simply can't hold him when he dives for it. He doesn't dive towards me, because he has a natural reluctance to tread on his handler, which is just as well or he would be totally, totally unmanageable!
Anyway, we got to the bottom of the hill and because he was walking freely by now, I got on and rode him about another half mile up the road. Then he stopped and turned for home and carted me. It's avery amiable carting, he just trots gently along, but there is no way in the world that he is going to stop or turn until he wants to. I managed to stop after a couple of hundred yards, and got off and led him back again to where he had turned. This time he dived away from me, I tripped on a verge and he pulled free and went home.
I walked a mile home including a very steep hill. I went out into the field and caught him (fully tacked up still!!) I walked him all the way back down that &*%^^%$& hill and along the road until we were well past where he had been a prat. Then I got on and rode him home, utterly exhausted. My goodness he has an attitude!
I am hoping that he won't take long to realise that objectionable behaviour simply results in having to work harder. If it's more than a week or two I'm going to be very fit :-) And he'll have no feet left - all the time on the road today has left him with completely flat feet :-000. I'm sure they'll recover in a day or so and be all the better for the stressing today.
To cap it all I have a virus today too, and I really could have done with a quiet hack on Tetley :-)
Serves me right for buying a four year old. (But I still love him to bits!)
C
posted by cptrayes @ 9:19 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Uh, oh. Some of this sounds vaguely familiar, although I must admit Jazz far outdoes any of my horses. I do remember a long hike back from a ride in the woods when my first horse deserted me and ran home. I hopped back on a rode him out to the spot where he'd left me and finished the ride on top exactly as I had planned hours before.
As long as Jazz has at least a bit of an aversion to work, you are going to win eventually. He is going to figure out the shortcut is to do as you tell him, not make it an epic "discussion." (I have to admit, from afar, it is a bit funny...but my poor knees are aching thinking of all that walking up and down hills.)
Keep at it. I am cheering you on. In the meantime, you can actually relax with Lady Tia. Never thought we'd be saying that! *G*
Interesting aBout Jazz's fear in the lorry. He must have had some really bad transport in the past.
You have the patience of a saint, and very fit legs!
What bit are you riding him in. I like to keep all my horses in snaffle but sometimes it pays to go up a level whilst teaching them something new then when they've got I take them back into the snaffle,and let them work in that.
Chicken soup is always good + pate and hot bread, for a virus. I hear if you induluge the body with goodies the mind recovers.
Oh dear - sounds like more work for you than him?!
I have to say i'm surprised you keep getting off him, what is the motivation for doing that?
I have just helped my friend deal with her very opinionated appaloosa that does much the same in that he decides today he wants to go left not right and if he's in that sort of mood he'll rear and twist and run backwards into things and buck all in an effort to go where he wants.
The reason i'd never get off and try and lead a horse (unless it was genuinely fear that was making them say no and then being someone they trust it's fairer to allow you to take the lead for them) is precisely because of the risk of losing them as you did with Jazz twice.
Can you try all the other tricks to get your own way - circling fast until forwards in the direction you want is more appealing, growling a lot and waving your hand forward to get the forward movement, sitting and waiting it out facing the way you want until he's board,if he tries to bog off in teh opposite direction circle tight and hard with a sharp "NO" (with my friends appaloosa you have to jolt him back to reality, he goes into a kind of head spin where he isn't rational and sharp use of the voice brings him back to listening). The other thing with the appaloosa is that all the theatricals of the rearing and running backwards etc is to frighten the rider and get you to give in, if we sit it out he realises reversing into a ditch isn't going to help him.
Just trying to think of alternatives to getting off him as that simply teaches him he can pull away and bog off where he wants..for my nerves and his safety i'd not try and lead him if he doesn't respect it.
Pleased you still like him though : )
Cassie
Cassie, while I agree with you about getting off, I can understand Caroline's prediciament. I the first place, Jazz will not go at all, anywhere he doesn't want to go. My boy is like that and will root himself to the ground where no amount of waving, trying to circle or anything will get him to go. From Caroline's descriptions, Jazz is even stronger willed than that.
Secondly, with a super athletic horse like Jazz, if he takes the other option of getting out of control, the danger spiral to both horse and rider gets super high super quickly. (Note her comment about his trying to "breast the gate.") Since Caroline is out riding by herself, the consequnces of an accident are maginified as well.
I know for sure that I can't sit out one of my horse's temper tantrums, so I too have bailed out rather than getting thrown off. While I agree it's not the better option, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor and common sense.
I was thinking perhaps she could fasten an extra lead line to the bit when she rides, one longer than the reins, so that if she finds herself getting off there would be some extra line to hold on to with hopes that might be able to give a few more inches to check his attempts to bolt.
What might be a big help would be if Caroline had someone else to ride with at home. That way Jazz could have a lead out to the tracks and perhaps he might build up his courage and responsiveness a bit with a leader. I think the farm ride will be a terrific experience for him.
i'm with caroline & jean - largely because molly's the same. if she plants, she plants and that's it. and having been dumped in the carpark when she deliberately went down (then did the same to someone else, but on grass) - personal safety and all that. especially when caroline's on her own ....
scary.
and a shame he's scared of the lorry engine/vibration. the mind boggles what's happened in the past to cause that!
Cassie I agree with you wholeheartedly. I have got off only two horses in my entire life. The first was Caddy when he had not crossed a stream that I wanted him to after half an hour of trying and some very dangerous antics. I thought leading him would allow him to take confidence from me.
The second is Jazz. You cannot move Jazz, he just plants. I know every trick in the book to make a horse move, but if he won't, he won't. And when he is fed up with you chivvying him, or waiting, or trying to turn a circle, he casually turns and goes for home and there is absolutely nothing that you can do to stop him - except turn him at a bank or a wall which it is clear that he is simply going to jump if you do. Circling in a 10 foot wide lane on a horse that strong who doesn't want to turn is not possible, again he ends up pointed at a bank with a wall on top and barbed wire on top of that, with every sign that he perfectly happy and prepared to jump the lot.
Jean's right, I need a lead horse, but one of the penalties of having your own place is that there is no ready supply of nursemaids. The only way I can win as things are is to get off and make him walk, which for some reason he will do. I will take Jean up on the suggestion of taking my long lead rope with me next time.
Victoria he's in a long cheek snaffle, the long cheeks to help with the turning. I am close to seeing what happens with a pelham if he p*sses off with me again! Thank goodness he never actually bolts, it's part of his almightly cockiness that he knows he's OK just doing a casual jog !!!! And strangely, once you actually turn for home he is as quiet as a lamb!
I love him to bits Cassie - I never wanted him to be easy, just good and fun, and I've got even more than I bargained for in the athleticism and personality departments. :-) :-) :-)
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