Hi, i have a 4 year old mare. She is very lovely with me in the box, in the round pen when lunging... Did a successful join up when i bought her last autumn. She's been improving a lot. But there is something that does not change: she kicks every time a horse comes too close. When i see her hears goung back i try to tell her to stay quiet, but she's so quick that i don't always manage to prevent it.
What can i do?
Thanks for your precious help!
Beatrice
I don't know if I can be of much help but Monty talked about how horses don't like to kick rubber because it absorbs the impact and he showed how he would put a horse in a shoot with rubber mats hanging behind them and as he worked to gentle them and they kicked out they would kick these thick rubber mats and they don't like the feel of it so they learn not to kick. If you could set up a shoot system with panels - chains across the front to hold the horse in and rubber mats behind and then bring in another horse behind her this might work to discourage the kicking. All of this information is in his video entitled "You and your wild horse". I've talked about this video a lot because it has so much good information.
I hope this helps,
Kleinne
Hi Bea - Your young mare seems to be nervous of other horses and is kicking out to keep them away from her - gettin in first if you like. Are you working her with other horses very often? Hopefully the more she works with other horses the better she will become. It seems that she is giving you some warning by putting her ears back so I would put her into a fairly tight circle as soon as this happens. She shouldn't be able to kick out when in a tight circle and the circling itself is a form of punishment. So my advice is: work her as much as you can with other horses - have them circle around her, come up behind her, pass her etc. and everytime she shows you any sign she is about to kick out circle her. Do this at walk, trot and canter. Hopefully if you persevere the bad habit will go.
Both fantastic ideas. I am going to buile a shoot and hang the rubber for when the vet comes and needs to examine Star's backend.
Thank you so much geys.
Ronda
Yes i thank you both. I think I am going to try to ride among other horses and do the circles if she get her hears back. I see two good things in that: first she cannot kick and second that keeps her busy with a difficult exercise. The only thing is that when an exercise starts to become too demanding or she does not understand what i want from her she stops and stays there, not going anywhere.
That'll be the subjet of a new discussion I'mi going to create right away...
Ronda,
If Star is sensitive around her back end and prone to kick I would spend some time with Monty's fake arm, rubbing her all over her back legs and such to get her used to being touched back there. Monty actually cut out the bottom part of the panel to give him better access to the horses legs. He also spent a good deal of time walking the horse both ways through the shoot to get them comfortable with the enclosure so when they were locked in the shoot it wasn't frightening to them. In the video he shows exactly how to build the shoot which is really nice to know so it's safe for everyone involved.
Bea,
I was just reading "From my hands to yours" and I had forgotten about kicking rings. I had read about these before but I've never used them, when I read about them again in Monty's book I thought of you, according to Monty they're very helpful in stopping kicking behavior.