HORSEMANSHIP
Hard to catch? How to retrain your horse
E
ver had a horse that just
refuses to be caught, or,
worse, one that is
downright dangerous to
catch? It can be frustrating,
not to mention exhausting,
tramping around a paddock
as the minutes ~ or hours ~
tick by and you miss yet
another ride, or arrive late at
a competition because it took
longer than expected to box
the horse.
The usual solution, but the
wrong one, is to plonk some
cubes in a bucket and, hiding
the halter behind your back,
sidle up to the nag shaking
the bucket so the cubes rattle
about enticingly inside. Then,
as your little piggy horse
plunges his snout into the
bucket you quickly wrap the
lead rein around his neck and
slide the halter up his face
with a satisfied grin on yours.
Wrong approach, it turns out,
... tramping around the paddock as the minutes ~ or hours ~ tick by...
and one which can actually
make the problem worse over
time, because he'll soon learn
that his bad behaviour leads
to the reward of a snack. And
by extension, the more bad
behaviour he exhibits the
more snack he gets.
Here is some advice from an
experienced New Zealand
equestrian and blogger.
Before teaching the horse to
be caught, one should
identify why there is a
problem in the first place.
The commonest reasons why
a horse might be hard to
catch would be that it has
never actually been taught
correctly how to be caught,
has been inadvertently
rewarded for this behaviour
(see above), or because the
rider always g a v e up before
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actually catching the horse,
or even that it perceives that
every time it is caught
something bad happens
(always going to shows, lots
of vet visits, owner always
rushing etc.) If you can figure
out which category your
horse falls into, you can help
to correct the bigger picture.
If your horse has a really bad
catching problem, bear in
mind that the bigger the
paddock the harder it will be
to stay with him and keep his
attention while trying to
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