From: Pip
Hi Jessica:
Looking forward to seeing you at our clinic in August!..but I have a question that can't wait till then!!!
Squeak, my 9 yr old 3/4 arab gelding is very pretty and when he was 4 and 5 did extremely well in class A arab shows (and open shows) in Show Hack and hunter pleasure classes. Unfortunately he clued in very quickly to the whole deal and started anticipating every move, getting to the point where he would enter the ring and then just fight to go to the centre to line up. Consequently we gave up on flat classes for a while. Since then we've been doing dressage (which is harder for him to anticipate but he still memorizes the tests better than I do!). I thought that he was just bored in the flat classes and that if we didn't do them for a while he'd get over it. Last year I put him in one flat class at a class a show (we had gone for the dressage and completed that with no problems). As soon as he made it half way around the ring it was almost as if he realized this wasn't a dressage test, it was one of those evil flat classes and he literally had what seemed like a temper tantrum. He wouldn't walk, he tried to head for the centre, when I wouldn't let him he just became uncontrollable. It was so bad I almost wondered if he had something under his saddle. We persisted through the class - came last of course, and left the ring. It didn't seem to make any difference how mad I got, or how I tried to appease him, he just wouldn't listen. I checked him over after the class to make sure there was no physical reason for his idiocy and then worked him in the holding ring - he was fabulous. So good in fact that I got appreciative comments from others who were warming up. Darn.
This is sooooo frustrating. This horse is very pretty and would be virtually unbeatable in the show ring if he would behave. I know he isn't afraid - I thought perhaps it was the other horses in the ring or something - but he has done this since he was 4 years old and never had a bad experience, plus he is fine in the holding ring where no end of wild and crazy things are happening (especially at an arab show!). Why does he hate these classes so? shouldn't he do what I ask him regardless of what he wants to do? Can an animal actually have these kinds of emotions? Its isn't that he is picking up on nerves from me at all, I showed his mother for ten years so this stuff is old hat to me.
I would love to do some flat showing with him again, and hope to do so with his brother, but Wilfred is way smarter than Squeak and I wonder if he won't go 'stale' even quicker.
Any solutions, suggestions Jessica? Squeak is smart enough to know that I can't get after him too much in the show ring. Should I just take him to schooling shows and battle it out once and for all. I hate the idea of 'duking' it out with him, but I just don't know what else to do.
HELP!
any input appreciated.
thanx Jessica.
I'm afraid that there are really only two obvious choices here: you are either going to have to forget about those classes and focus on dressage instead, OR figure out a way to ride him every step of every class, so that he is NEVER expected to go on auto-pilot. Another thing you have to think about is whether he simply doesn't like working in a group -- some horses are wonderfully suited to trail-riding or pleasure classes, because they LOVE being in a crowd, but can't deal with the solitude of the dressage arena or the show-jumping ring. Others are great when they're alone, but can't adjust to group classes -- Squeak may just not like the atmosphere in those classes, or the tension he feels from you (because you're wondering whether he's going to go well or not). You may as well figure out what works for Squeak and then do that.
"Duking it out" with him isn't going to make him any happier about pleasure and hack classes, and it isn't going to make him enjoy them any more! It also won't help him enjoy YOU, so I say "Bag that idea, it's counter-productive!" If you can't persuade him that the classes are FUN, fighting with him certainly won't do the trick either.
Yes, animals have emotions and preferences -- and sometimes their preferences don't match yours. When that happens, you try to convince them that what YOU want to do is fun -- set them up to succeed, talk to them, reward them. If that doesn't work, find out what they do well and enjoy, and then do THAT instead! It's not the horse's job to do what you want to do and like it, regardless of its own preferences -- it's the RIDER'S job to enable the horse to enjoy its work. If it can't enjoy a certain type of work, you have to find the work it can enjoy.
If Squeak has been doing this since he was four, he's had plenty of time to get to like it -- or get bored, or get annoyed. But before you decide that it's all a matter of attitude, check a few other things. Do you use different tack for these classes? If he's fine in the dressage arena, he obviously doesn't have a problem with that bit and saddle, or with whatever spurs you use. Try using the same tack and equipment in a pleasure or hack class (try this at a schooling show, so it won't cost much to make the experiment! ). If he seems normal, then maybe it was the equipment that bothered him. Sometimes something perfectly innocent, like an extra-thick saddle pad or a show girth, can make a horse miserably uncomfortable, and the result will be bad behaviour in any class he's entered in -- as long as he's wearing THAT pad, or THAT girth, or THAT saddle or bridle or bit.
If the tack checks out fine, you may just have a horse that doesn't enjoy those classes! Some do - some don't. The ones that DO aren't necessarily the most interesting horses, either. Example:
Years ago, I had a little QH gelding who won Western Pleasure classes ALL the time, and probably would have won them whether anyone was riding him or not. He certainly wasn't affected at all by anything I did, or any rider did -- this was the exact opposite of dressage. The horse was in charge! He would go into the ring and "show" himself, and whenever the announcer picked up the microphone to ask for a jog or a lope, Moneyline would change his gait when he heard the microphone rattle! All the rider had to do was sit there and smile. He did wonderfully (although we would have LOST every class if the announcers ever changed the order of gaits), but he was strictly a show horse. That was his job, he liked it, he did it well, and he didn't want to do anything else. He didn't like trails, he didn't like working alone.... When I wanted to DO more with a horse, I got another horse!
Maybe Wilfred will be your show horse -- and maybe Squeak would like to be your dressage horse. It won't hurt anything if you ONLY take him to dressage shows for a year or two, then put him back in a pleasure or hack class to see what happens. The dressage will only improve his performance, and if he still doesn't like those classes.... you may not mind so much if he's good at his "other" job!
Let me know what happens -- and we'll work with him in August!
- Jessica
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