From: Donna
Dear Jessica,
I am exhausting all my options before I have to make the worst decision of my life. Recently my normally willing but strong willed, very intelligent 9 year old Arab/quarter mare has taken up rearing. I have had a trainer working on her since last September on simple western pleasure movement, headsetting, lead changes, working off the hind end etc.. All this work has been done inside an arena. She had really come along great.
About a month ago I decided it was time for her to get back out the trails. I had one rearing incident a while back and I knew she needed more work here than in the arena. So for five days I had my trainer take her out to see how she'd do. She'd lunge her first work her a little in the arena then take her out. Not until the fifth day did the nightmare begin. My mare started going up before she even got down the drive. A walk she has taken a million times. But my trainer made her go. Yes she dealt with it and for about 31/2 hours. A very brave woman. I can't believe the endurance this horse has. She was dripping wet when they returned.
As one trainer puts it: 1. You can't get hurt 2. the horse can't get hurt and 3. the horse must be calmer at the end of the ride than they were at the beginning. Well, I think she was. Our conclusion to this dangerous behavior is the possible prospect of a few weeks prior to the trail training a yearling had been put in her paddock. We think that she has possibly definatly bonded with her and that she either thinks she's her momma or she wants to be a momma herself. Remember, prior to the new yearling, I had ridden my mare all over the farm with no more than a little easy to deal with spook now and then. When she was unsure she'd never take the extreme of rearing just a little song and dance and we'd work through it. My question is: could this be possible? That my mare wants to be a momma or is she just really buddy sour and spoiled and getting away with it? Then how do you fix this? I tried taking her out of the paddock and she got through the fence (not very secure fencing to start with) and paced back and forth in front of her regular paddock so we put her back in. Before the yearling I always rode her away from the others and by ourselves.
Any advise, thank you Donna
Does your mare want to be (or think that she is) a mother? Almost certainly not. Horses don't function that way. A barren mare in a field with other mares and foals may, under certain circumstances, steal a newborn foal. But that's an entirely different situation; your mare's problem is something else entirely. A mare in heat may be reluctant to leave the sexy stallion in the next field, but that again is another situation. ;-)
Attachment to a buddy is certainly possible, and if your mare has a close friend in the same or a neighbouring paddock, she may very well want to stay with or return to her friend. But this is probably secondary to the fact that your mare has spent the last many months working at this barn, IN an arena, and sees the barn as her herd and her security. Asking a horse to leave its safety zone and go down the trail alone after many months of arena work, especially if the horse is in pain, is a good formula for creating a horse that will rear, buck, or bolt.
"Trying to get away with" isn't a phrase I use about horses. I haven't yet met one to which it would apply. Horses do what comes naturally to horses, and what they have been taught to do by humans, and horses do things in reaction to the painful or frightening or pleasant or reassuring things that humans do to them. Horse reactions are HORSE reactions, not human ones, and they don't think like humans, which often confuses the humans to whom they are reacting!
A child who feeds a horse jelly beans or little carrot pieces from a cupped hand runs the risk of having a finger bitten, NOT because the horse is vicious and demanding more treats, but because the child doesn't know how to feed a horse a treat.
A horse that steps on the foot of the human who is leading it is not acting out of spite or revenge or "trying to get out of being ridden", it's just stepping where it steps (it can't see its own feet), and it's the human's fault for putting human feet under horse feet.
A horse that rears is almost always a horse in pain, or a horse that is badly frightened. It's possible to train a horse to rear, true, but that usually begins with a rear that happens out of pain or fear. Here's how to induce a horse to rear: ride the horse, perhaps a sore-backed or sore-footed horse, with a saddle that doesn't fit. Use bits and auxiliary reins that make it impossible for the horse to move its head and neck or put them into comfortable positions. Kick the horse forward whilst holding its mouth painfully. After a time, unless the horse is a true saint, it will rear. It's responding to the rider saying, in effect, "I can hurt you a lot, and make you go forward and hurt even more, but surprise, I won't LET you go forward, I just want to hurt you!" The horse, already in pain and deprived of its ability to go forward, will go up. Sometimes it will go up and over.... and sometimes the rider will be killed.
To confirm the training, put the horse in the same position over and over again, and you'll make the rearing reaction into a habit. If nothing changes about what the rider is doing, nothing is likely to change about the horse's reaction.
Sore backs, sore mouths, and total unhappiness are the usual suspects when a horse begins to rear. If you think that your mare may have a hormonal condition that would make her more susceptible to rearing, it's possible -- she could have a sore back from a painful follicle, or she could have painful cysts on her ovaries. These are matters for your vet to determine, and if you suspect that there is ANY chance of either condition, I can only hope that you will have the vet out immediately.
In the meantime, though, I would look at more ordinary causes of pain. Saddle fit is always worth investigating, particularly in the case of a horse that has been undergoing intensive training. Her back has undoubtedly changed shape since the training began, and even if the saddle fit her at the beginning of training, it may not fit her now. Mouth pain from a severe bit, or from a heavy-handed rider, or from the constant use of draw reins, can send a horse straight up into the air. Mouth pain is made infinitely worse if the horse's teeth are in need of floating. Have your vet or dentist look at your mare's mouth and do any necessary smoothing of rough edges and sharp points. Has your mare had her wolf teeth (if any) removed?
Sore FEET can cause rearing. Many navicular horses, for instance, and horses with laminitis, reach a point at which they simply refuse to go forward, especially on hard, uneven, extremely painful surfaces. Such horses will sometimes stand still, and sometimes walk on their hind legs, in an effort to avoid putting weight on their sore front feet. It's something that your vet and farrier can help you investigate.
Training can cause rearing, because training can cause a LOT of pain. "Head-setting" is really not an acceptable term, or concept, for a horseman, because the only thing it does is hurt, frighten, and damage the horses. Horses with "headsets" are invariably sore in their mouths, necks and backs, and often very sore in their hind legs as well. Horses that are worked hard whilst their heads are held in a fixed position are going to be sore, full stop. It's not good, it's not fair, and it's not going to create a comfortable or happy animal.
If your vet, dentist, and farrier find nothing overtly wrong with the mare physically, and ultrasound reveals no cysts or large follicles that could be causing a problem, look very hard at the tack fit and at the selection of tack. Horses wearing saddles with too-long skirts can buck or rear because of the painful contact between the back of the saddle (or the edge of the pad) with their hips. If this is the case, you might change to a saddle with shorter, rounded skirts, like a barrel saddle, and see how your horse reacts. Horses wearing unsuitable/cruel bits can buck or rear - or bolt - when the pain in their mouths becomes overwhelming. Try using the gentlest bit possible, or no bit at all - a week or two in a soft, padded sidepull or English jumping hackamore never hurt any horse. You might think that this would lessen the rider's control, but you'd be mistaken. Riders (and tack) should not control horses through pain.
For the same reason, I would advise changing her training and trying to restore her normal movement and range of motion. This may take quite a lot of time, and you may need the services of more experts: massage and chiropractic help are often necessary to put a horse back into a normal shape after it's been subjected to "head-setting" techniques. The muscle damage alone can require months of daily massage.
As for the long fight between your horse and your trainer.... The idea that a horse should be more calm at the end of the lesson is a sound one, but what you've described is NOT what John had in mind. A horse that is exhausted from a three-and-a-half hour fight is not a calm horse, it's just a very, very tired horse, and a very unhappy one. The way to get a horse away from the barn and out onto the trail is not to make the experience as unpleasant as possible for as long as possible. If a horse stops on the way and refuses to go forward, instead of beating it and fighting with it, try sitting on it and keeping it pointed in the direction that you want it to go. Instead of forcing it, try waiting. It may take hours -- if you do this in summer, wear sunblock -- but your goal must be to make the horse DECIDE to go forward. You can do this simply by being very, very patient, and making it clear to the horse that it isn't going to be allowed to go sideways or backward or in any other direction than the one YOU want to go. Some horses take twenty minutes to figure out that their only useful choice is to go forward unimpeded. Some horses take two hours or longer -- but it's two hours of STANDING, not two hours of fighting. A horse that's standing still, with a choice and a place to go, isn't going to panic or go up or go over, and it can eventually figure out what its options are. A horse that's being pushed and pulled and kicked and yanked won't have the peace and quiet to figure out those options, and, after a point, will simply panic and buck, bolt, or rear.
Think about it in terms of your ultimate training goals. Do you want to force the horse down the trail RIGHT NOW, TODAY, WHATEVER IT TAKES, and then have it take twice as long to get the horse down the trail next time? Or do you want to invest the time it takes to let the horse come to the correct conclusion, and have it take half the time next time, and half THAT time, or maybe no time at all, the time after that? It's up to you.
I think that the yearling's brief presence in the next paddock was a coincidence, not a cause of your mare's rearing. It's far more likely that the problem has more to do with the shift from arena work to trailwork, with all that implies about longer sessions, harder footing, and leaving the security of the farm. DO have your vet look at your mare, in case there is a specific physical problem, whether it be hormonal or otherwise. I also suggest, in the strongest possible terms, that you bring in someone who is good at evaluating tack suitability and fit. Your mare is trying to tell you something. In my experience, "I'm in pain" and "I'm frightened" are 100% more likely than any other possibilities. Listen to her -- and bring in some experts who may be able to listen more closely and hear more accurately. She sounds like a very nice mare and one you've enjoyed riding in the past; I'd like to hear from you in a few months and know that all is well and that you and your mare are enjoying your time together once again.
If I can leave you with one single thought about horses and training, I'd like it to be this: horses that seem to be saying "NO!" are almost always really saying "It hurts!" or "I'm afraid!" or "I don't understand what you want!" Base your training on that, instead of on the idea that your horse has some complex psychological plan based on human thought and motivation, and you won't go far wrong.
Good luck, and please let me know what happens. If this response has seemed severe, it was meant to -- because your horse is hurting NOW, and because you or your trainer will get badly hurt if someone doesn't start dealing with the cause of the problem. Rearing is NOT a trivial action, and it can have very serious consequences. I don't want anyone to get hurt.
Jessica
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