4. The first great trailering debacle
Published by Cari Zancanelli under dressage, groundwork, horse training, mustangs, trailer loading on 4:43 PM
I took lessons from another student who was a German national but learned the French method of dressage while living in Africa. It all sounds very exotic, but she was reasonably priced and actually taught me a lot of things that no one else has. I still use many of her techniques to collect a horse and to get them to listen to me better. After a year she graduated and went back to Germany, leaving Bella and I without a teacher. While I could ride fairly confidently, Bella was still very green and I knew we needed more lessons.
I found a woman who seemed great at first, but in hind sight I think the fact that I owned a barely trained mustang put her off. She was supposed to ride her for me several times but would make excuses and not ride her. She was used to warmbloods and thoroughbreds, not a little mustang. There was something else about her that was not quite right and we just never had a great relationship. While the other instructor had made Bella and I feel very calm and confident, this new instructor did not.
As I mentioned before, the lack of groundwork would eventually cause problems and it was during this time that I realized that although I could ride her, I had no real control over my horse. The worst incident happened while riding in the arena one day. The arena sat right by the main road and Bella's pen was on the other side of it. As we rode next to the road, a hay stacker (a kind of tractor/vehicle that can deliver and entire stack of hay) was coming towards us. Bella immediately became frightened and took off at full gallop. I proudly stayed on, figuring that she would stop running at the gate to her pen. I did try to pull on the reins but her fear overcame any control I might have. She ignored me. I hung on, and when we got to the gate, I relaxed and...she did a 180. I came off into the gate post at full speed, smashing my helmet and giving myself a concussion. It even tore off my shirt!
Bella came back and looked at me with this expression of "Wow, what are you doing on the ground?" It didn't seem to occur to her that I could fall off (see my blog "Psychic phenomena - Bella speaks for more about what happened afterwards). It took me weeks to recover and more time to feel comfortable riding her again. The accident made me realize that the dressage instructors I'd hired really didn't seem to know how to handle a green horse. After doing some research on my own, I decided to do some groundwork with Bella and to stop the dressage lessons.
Before I got very far, though, I would have to move Bella to a new place. She was boarded at the house of a coworker of mine, who eventually decided not to have boarders. Since she had simply hopped in to the trailer at the prison, I didn't anticipate any problems trailering her to the new boarding place. I lined up a trailer and on the prescribed day, attempted to load her. She wouldn't go in.
If you are a horse person, trainer, whatever, let me tell you before you ask...Yes, we tried THAT! Over the years I have tried every single method of trailer loading a horse! But this is a story of how I learned things, and so I will stick with the chronological order. At this point in the story, I didn't know much about groundwork and training. I had failed to build a lot of trust, although it seemed like I had trust with Bella, it didn't go very deep.
That first day we tried many different methods, such as "get momentum", where you get the horse trotting and you run at the trailer...We tried "butt rope", where you hold a rope across her butt (she flipped over backwards and ran off), we tried "blindfold" (only works if they trust you completely, and she didn't, and wouldn't get in the trailer), we also tried "ramp" (the assumption being that she didn't want to step up or off). Didn't matter, she wouldn't get in. I spent the next few weeks working with her and the trailer. We backed it up to the pen and put her food in it. She happily went into the trailer and ate the hay but if I showed up, she would back out at lightening speed. I got her feeling comfortable enough to put in one foot and this gave me a lot of hope. Then, two feet! She put in TWO FEET! We are half-way there! And that's where we stayed...half-way in, half-way out. At this point, I truly believe that if I had known what I was doing I could have gotten her over her fear and she would be trailering fine today.
At the new barn things I would learn more about horses than I ever imagined.
I found a woman who seemed great at first, but in hind sight I think the fact that I owned a barely trained mustang put her off. She was supposed to ride her for me several times but would make excuses and not ride her. She was used to warmbloods and thoroughbreds, not a little mustang. There was something else about her that was not quite right and we just never had a great relationship. While the other instructor had made Bella and I feel very calm and confident, this new instructor did not.
As I mentioned before, the lack of groundwork would eventually cause problems and it was during this time that I realized that although I could ride her, I had no real control over my horse. The worst incident happened while riding in the arena one day. The arena sat right by the main road and Bella's pen was on the other side of it. As we rode next to the road, a hay stacker (a kind of tractor/vehicle that can deliver and entire stack of hay) was coming towards us. Bella immediately became frightened and took off at full gallop. I proudly stayed on, figuring that she would stop running at the gate to her pen. I did try to pull on the reins but her fear overcame any control I might have. She ignored me. I hung on, and when we got to the gate, I relaxed and...she did a 180. I came off into the gate post at full speed, smashing my helmet and giving myself a concussion. It even tore off my shirt!
Bella came back and looked at me with this expression of "Wow, what are you doing on the ground?" It didn't seem to occur to her that I could fall off (see my blog "Psychic phenomena - Bella speaks for more about what happened afterwards). It took me weeks to recover and more time to feel comfortable riding her again. The accident made me realize that the dressage instructors I'd hired really didn't seem to know how to handle a green horse. After doing some research on my own, I decided to do some groundwork with Bella and to stop the dressage lessons.
Before I got very far, though, I would have to move Bella to a new place. She was boarded at the house of a coworker of mine, who eventually decided not to have boarders. Since she had simply hopped in to the trailer at the prison, I didn't anticipate any problems trailering her to the new boarding place. I lined up a trailer and on the prescribed day, attempted to load her. She wouldn't go in.
If you are a horse person, trainer, whatever, let me tell you before you ask...Yes, we tried THAT! Over the years I have tried every single method of trailer loading a horse! But this is a story of how I learned things, and so I will stick with the chronological order. At this point in the story, I didn't know much about groundwork and training. I had failed to build a lot of trust, although it seemed like I had trust with Bella, it didn't go very deep.
That first day we tried many different methods, such as "get momentum", where you get the horse trotting and you run at the trailer...We tried "butt rope", where you hold a rope across her butt (she flipped over backwards and ran off), we tried "blindfold" (only works if they trust you completely, and she didn't, and wouldn't get in the trailer), we also tried "ramp" (the assumption being that she didn't want to step up or off). Didn't matter, she wouldn't get in. I spent the next few weeks working with her and the trailer. We backed it up to the pen and put her food in it. She happily went into the trailer and ate the hay but if I showed up, she would back out at lightening speed. I got her feeling comfortable enough to put in one foot and this gave me a lot of hope. Then, two feet! She put in TWO FEET! We are half-way there! And that's where we stayed...half-way in, half-way out. At this point, I truly believe that if I had known what I was doing I could have gotten her over her fear and she would be trailering fine today.
Bella, as this photo PROVES was at least once inside a trailer!
This was when she was brought from Canyon City.
Finally, I had to move her and made the decision to walk her over to the new barn. It was about 5 miles away, not too far. So we headed out early one Sunday morning so there wouldn't be much traffic. My husband pulled the trailer ahead of us and flagged cars down to tell them to proceed slowly. She was excited and hard to handle, but we arrived just fine. The entire episode, though, only brought home the fact that she was not trained very well at all. At the new barn things I would learn more about horses than I ever imagined.
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