Horses

[megan chickens]

she does a little English riding mostly western tho.

The brown horse is my sisters he is 161/2 hands tall!

She loves water!
She even is a great beginner horse, she taught my 8 year old cousin how to ride.
Also she is a great jumper and that's kinda weird for a full blood QH

 

[mothergoose]

We are "Old McDonald's Farm". We have a little of everything. We have had horses forever. This is our horse "Dixie" she is a 9 yr old. buckskin quarter horse. Our kids love to ride. She was out enjoying the snow yesterday.

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

Your horse is beautiful! I have always wanted a Buckskin.
I have a White (Grey) QH Gelding. He is around 23 years old, but as ornery as ever! His name is Mo. (kind of boring, but he came with it.) we got him a couple years ago. He is 15.3 hh. At the time, we were just looking for a horse that was okay, but not too expensive. Anyway, he is really barn sour, but I have broke him out of a lot of it.
He is a little strange. For one thing, he can't stand to have you touch or pet him on or near his face. We wonder is something happened to him that makes him like that. He has a dent in his nose from a tight halter. He also has two brands. One is very visible, on his left hindquarter. The other, we didn't know about, until we brought him to get his Coggins, and the vet was like, he has a brand here! It's on his right shoulder. A pitchfork. We have always wondered where he came from, and somebody once said, he looked like a really good bred QH, from some ranch, but we never found it.
I'm looking forward to when we can get another horse, because it will be so much more fun to ride with somebody!
Mo is the kind of horse that you can work with for a whole day, and a week later, he forgets it all, and you have to do it all over again!
The first day after we got him, we got him out, and we couldn't even control him! The lady we got him from emailed us, and said that she forgot to tell us you have to use a gag bit on him. We bought one, and it worked. We hated using it on him, but the other bits we had didn't work. It didn't help that he has a super wide mouth, and most bits won't fit him. But a while ago, we bought a bit that was not so severe, but not super mild, and it had been working great.

 

[mothergoose]

Your horse is beautiful! I have always wanted a Buckskin.
I have a White (Grey) QH Gelding. He is around 23 years old, but as ornery as ever! His name is Mo. (kind of boring, but he came with it.) we got him a couple years ago. He is 15.3 hh. At the time, we were just looking for a horse that was okay, but not too expensive. Anyway, he is really barn sour, but I have broke him out of a lot of it.
He is a little strange. For one thing, he can't stand to have you touch or pet him on or near his face. We wonder is something happened to him that makes him like that. He has a dent in his nose from a tight halter. He also has two brands. One is very visible, on his left hindquarter. The other, we didn't know about, until we brought him to get his Coggins, and the vet was like, he has a brand here! It's on his right shoulder. A pitchfork. We have always wondered where he came from, and somebody once said, he looked like a really good bred QH, from some ranch, but we never found it.
I'm looking forward to when we can get another horse, because it will be so much more fun to ride with somebody!
Mo is the kind of horse that you can work with for a whole day, and a week later, he forgets it all, and you have to do it all over again!
The first day after we got him, we got him out, and we couldn't even control him! The lady we got him from emailed us, and said that she forgot to tell us you have to use a gag bit on him. We bought one, and it worked. We hated using it on him, but the other bits we had didn't work. It didn't help that he has a super wide mouth, and most bits won't fit him. But a while ago, we bought a bit that was not so severe, but not super mild, and it had been working great.

Thank you for the compliment. Our kids all love riding her. We have had lots of horses over the years. We tend to keep them till they pass. Our last horse was 26 when he died and was a hard loss. He was a babysitter, anyone could ride him and he followed you around like a puppy. Dixie has a long way to go to be as good as he was, but she is young and will get there in time. Another bit you might try with Mo is a hackamore. Sometimes horses have had such rough hands that they develop a hard mouth. A hackamore takes the pressure out of the mouth and over the nose instead. You still use a curb chain with it and it can still be painful if your heavy handed. But he may be more responsive to something like that. Have fun with your horse.

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

Thank you for the compliment. Our kids all love riding her. We have had lots of horses over the years. We tend to keep them till they pass. Our last horse was 26 when he died and was a hard loss. He was a babysitter, anyone could ride him and he followed you around like a puppy. Dixie has a long way to go to be as good as he was, but she is young and will get there in time. Another bit you might try with Mo is a hackamore. Sometimes horses have had such rough hands that they develop a hard mouth. A hackamore takes the pressure out of the mouth and over the nose instead. You still use a curb chain with it and it can still be painful if your heavy handed. But he may be more responsive to something like that. Have fun with your horse.

Yes, that is a good idea. I have a feeling though that it wouldn't work. He is super hard headed. Sometimes if he wants to go one way, it takes all my strength to turn his head, and it makes my arm ache. This doesn't happen much, but I just don't know how he would react to it. Would you like me to post some pictures? Oh, summer photos are best. He has hair three inches long in the winter! Makes him look very fluffy. Would be cute except he gets dirty sometimes......

 

[mothergoose]

Yes, that is a good idea. I have a feeling though that it wouldn't work. He is super hard headed. Sometimes if he wants to go one way, it takes all my strength to turn his head, and it makes my arm ache. This doesn't happen much, but I just don't know how he would react to it. Would you like me to post some pictures? Oh, summer photos are best. He has hair three inches long in the winter! Makes him look very fluffy. Would be cute except he gets dirty sometimes......

When your dealing with a horse that is really barn sour, you will do better riding with two hands rather than neck reining also. You will have much more control and he will be less likely to boss you around. Make sure you are using leg cues when your asking him to do something as well. Sounds like he is just used to getting his way. If he is throwing his head up to get away from the bit, you may need to ride with a martingale as well. Sometimes those that are a challenge are more fun too!

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

When your dealing with a horse that is really barn sour, you will do better riding with two hands rather than neck reining also. You will have much more control and he will be less likely to boss you around. Make sure you are using leg cues when your asking him to do something as well. Sounds like he is just used to getting his way. If he is throwing his head up to get away from the bit, you may need to ride with a martingale as well. Sometimes those that are a challenge are more fun too!

I always ride with two hands, unless he is not giving me trouble.
I know how bad it is to let them get their ways, and so I always work and work, turn circles, etc, until he does what I want. He has improved a lot since the beginning. I have been working on getting him to just walk back to the barn. We go in circles about 3/4 the way back, and then he will usually start to calm down. He has this thing, like a jig, right I between a walk and a trot. I will start him home, and he will try jumping into a trot. We go in several circles. He always knows when we are on the last leg of the circle, because he wheels about, ready to go. After a while, he will walk, very fast. I am okay with that, because he is Walking. He will usually start to jig, and we go in more circles. But it always does feel good when I get him to finally do what I want!
I haven't been riding much lately. Mostly been picking his feet out, when the snow clumps on his feet.

 

[Bunnylady]

Would it be possible to do work right at the barn? The idea being that when he gets where he wants to be (the barn) there's work, work. work to be done there, not "the saddle comes off and we get to do what we want." You'd need to let him rest and be lazy when he goes where you want him to be, and have to work his tail off when he gets antsy about being back at the barn.

 

[Crazy for Chickens!]

Would it be possible to do work right at the barn? The idea being that when he gets where he wants to be (the barn) there's work, work. work to be done there, not "the saddle comes off and we get to do what we want." You'd need to let him rest and be lazy when he goes where you want him to be, and have to work his tail off when he gets antsy about being back at the barn.

I could, but i mostly believe that its just ingrained in his head, that he needs to be there. Who knows how it started.

 

[Bunnylady]

Who knows how it started.

With most horses, it's a pattern that an owner created, whether they were aware of it or not - like how the gate seems to have a magnetic attraction for horses working in a ring. The horse knows that he goes out the gate when the lesson is over, so he constantly tries to go to the gate so the lesson will be over. If the rider makes a point of ending the lesson away from the gate, the horse comes to realize that being at the gate is not connected to the lesson being over (of course, if the rider consistently ends the lesson at the opposite end from the gate, the horse may start trying to go to that spot!)

We have a horse that was dreadfully barn sour when my daughter first started riding her - she'd fight you every step away from the barn, and duck out and bolt back to the gate near the barn at any opportunity. We started picking random places in the pasture to get off and untack her. If the horse managed to run back to the gate, even if my daughter really had intended to get off soon, she did a lot more riding until the horse quit trying to stick her nose to the gate. She's a smart horse; it didn't take her long to figure out that getting to the gate did not mean she was done, far from it, it meant she was going to do more work. Because she never knew when or where we were going to call it quits, she became much more willing to go anywhere, in case that might happen to be "the" spot.