Скачать или смотреть Stopping, freezing, or reluctant to go forwards?

Stopping, freezing, or being reluctant to go forwards is a common sign of anxiety in horses. If you try to push them through it, they can quickly get frightened, go over threshold and it can lead to bigger behaviours like spooking, spinning or bolting. Obviously, we don’t want that!

Listening to, and respecting, your horse’s fear is an important part of communication and trust between you. Simply slowing down, responding and re-connecting with your horse can often give them the confidence to continue.

My top tips for doing this ridden:

1. Breeeaaatthhee. Taking deep slow breaths is a great way to centre yourself, and your horse will respond to your calmness and presence by relaxing, too. Pay attention to what you can feel through your seat, legs and reins and feeeel your horse’s tension and relaxation.2. Reward your horse for ANY sign of connecting with your or relaxing, such as sighing, flicking and eye or an ear on you, dropping their head slightly etc. 3. If your horse is too tense to take treats, or is not relaxing or tuning into you at all, dismount. You will be safer AND give your horse more confidence from the ground. Remember that you are a team: if you have a bad experience, you both lose; if you have a good experience, you both win.4. Be careful feeding treats if your horse is watching something approach with tension, for example a car pass etc. Leaning forwards can put you in a more vulnerable position, so sometimes I’ll just mark and praise until it’s passed and THEN lean forward to feed once everything is a bit calmer. 5. You can also ask for behaviours at the halt to help re-focus your horse onto you such as targeting your feet, lateral flexions from rein cues, dropping their head or tiny steps back or to the side. 6. Once you feel your horse relax and tune in, then you can see if they’re now happy to walk forwards - don’t forget to reward this bravery, too! But, if you have to dismount and lead to calm down and reconnect, that’s absolutely fine, too - you can remount later on and continue your ride calm, connected, safe and successful ❤️
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As always, this is just a short extract from the more in-depth videos in the CT Club, where you can follow along with these equines through every step of the training.

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