23/07/2025
Client story - Inappropriate Training 🐴
These stories are shared with permission but names have been changed to protect their privacy.
I was called out to see a horse, lets call him Harry, as they were having issues with him rearing in hand and under saddle. His owner had purchased him 6 months earlier from a home where he had hunted and competed heavily for several years and she just wanted to enjoy some hacking and low level dressage. As he had settled in his behaviour had become more unmanageable, he would seemingly randomly become extremely stressed in his paddock and gallop around until he was dripping with sweat, he was rearing and napping under saddle and had now started to rear on the short walk in from his paddock to the stable.
This horse had very recently been seen by a bodyworker who found “no issues” and cleared him to be ridden, and a saddle fitter who happily fitted a saddle to him. The owner was having fortnightly flatwork lessons with a local dressage rider and had also had a horsemanship trainer out to do some groundwork with him.
She showed me a video of her dressage lesson where she was being made to ride him on a 15m circle around the instructor in trot while he constantly tried to yank the reins out of her hands and his tail didn’t stop swishing, he was struggling so much that he looked extremely lame and was on three tracks. The instructor told her she just needed to work through it and he was trying to get out of it because she was too soft with him.
She then described the horsemanship lesson she’d had which involved chasing him around with a flag, making him back up, disengaging his quarters etc until he stopped protesting. She said he initially reared a lot and was very explosive but after about 20 minutes he seemed to settle and comply. She then tried to emulate this every day for 2 weeks afterwards like she’d been told, but every day he would come out really explosive before eventually settling. His owner just didn’t know what to do.
Upon seeing Harry, it was immediately apparent that he had a very weak, compromised body. Despite being a healthy weight, he had an extremely sunken appearance all through his neck, spine and back-end. There is no way it was appropriate for this horse to be ridden in this condition and I expressed my disappointment and concern than not one of the professionals involved with this horse had flagged this at all. These conversations are difficult, but I have to advocate for the horse.
We had a long conversation about healthy posture and musculature, the potential pain and discomfort issues and how this would affect his behaviour and how we can start to move forward.
We discussed his management first and foremost, if it was possible for him to stay with his pony companion in turnout and add enrichment to his stable. As with most behavioural issues this horse was extremely chronically stressed and our first port of call to help with this is to get our management the best we can.
We then took him into the arena and turned him loose with some empty buckets, we encouraged him to move from bucket to bucket by throwing low value food into each one, he was initially quite tense but started to relax into it. All of his associations with people and training had been so stressful that he naturally felt unsafe with people so it was going to take a while for his nervous system to calm down. We did maybe 10 minutes of this then took him back next to his friend to eat some hay. We then repeated it and took him back again.
We also taught him some basic nose targeting and did some treat scatters, just lots of low pressure, fun things to engage his brain and build positive associations with people again. At one point he spooked at something behind the hedge and froze, after about 5 seconds he touched the target with his nose and was back to being engaged with us. His owner couldn’t believe he hadn’t exploded.
Given how he presented and what had been going on I obviously referred the owner on to the vet for some investigations. Harry was diagnosed with stomach ulcers and arthritis in his neck, spine and hocks and his lovely owner immediately decided to not try to bring him back into ridden work. She medicated as appropriate and we worked with a physio on developing his body to help keep him comfortable. This looked like shaping movement and postures with positive reinforcement and enrichment games, not drilling over poles or up hills while he braced against us.
Harry now enjoys turnout with his pony friend, lots of hand walks with his owner and some quiet liberty work in the arena. His lovely owner has found a new joy in enjoying his company without riding him and would never have continued to do so if she knew he was in pain, but she just kept being told to push on.
Harry is a very sweet, gentle horse. At no time when I was there did he rear or explode, not because I am some magical horse whisperer, but because I didn’t put him in situations he couldn’t cope with. I can only imagine how painful being ridden or being chased and pulled around might have been for him. He was shouting out but nobody was translating this to his owner. This is such a huge issue within the industry, we have highly qualified and recommended people who do not understand behaviour and we are constantly pushing horses through pain.
I’ll leave you with this thought, if the training is causing your horse to be explosive, rear, pull back, try to get away from you or it just generally feels like a fight, it is not good for your horse regardless of what the end results looks like. I see so many compromised horses who are trying to communicate that they are struggling, and maybe that comes out as “bolshy” behaviour. We are then taking these compromised horses, hassling them into submission and calling it good horsemanship.
If training feels like a battle we are doing something wrong. 🐴
