Dear Jessica
Please can you help!! My friend had recently bought a horse which had been badly treated in the past and has a bad history of napping. My friend thought that maybe if they worked together slowly and built up a relationship that maybe these habits may disappear.
He was ridden in the school showing no problems at all and going really well. His condition and looks built up really quickly and now is quite a stunner, after lots of school work and hacking out in company my friend decided to try hacking him out alone. While out her horse was walking along when he saw something in the bushes he never liked and started backing up and soon began to back up to quickly and reared up. Unfortunately the horse never encountered the rider's weight and horse came back over on itself crushing my friend, the horse jumped up and ran off back home. Walkers managed to stop the horse and start to walk him back to the farm and my friend was found not long after and rushed to hospital. She is now on the road to recovery but asks my advice on weather she should try again or sell the horse to someone with more experience. The horse has reared again in hand and has not learnt his lesson - your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Beverley
Rearing is a natural followup to napping and backing up; it's really the same resistance, expressed differently: I WON'T GO FORWARD. There can be any number of reasons for this: the horse may be in pain (mistreatment and bad riding can lead to permanent back and/or mouth damage), or he may be frightened if he expects a beating, or he may have learned that napping/backing up/rearing is the only way to end the unpleasant experience of being ridden. But again, in this context it doesn't really matter what the reason is, because it would take a seasoned professional to diagnose the problem and attempt to sort out the horse in a kind way.
The horse probably HAS learned its lesson -- but not a good lesson, and not the lesson your friend may have wanted him to learn. The horse has learned that riding is unpleasant, and that it can bring the unpleasantness to an end by doing certain things. This is unfortunate, but entirely understandable. He probably learned this long before your friend acquired him.
It's possible that the horse was frightened by being hacked out on its own, but again, your friend would probably have been able to deal with a more "normal" reaction such as a shy or a startle. Even running away is preferable to backing up -- as long as the horse is moving forward, the potential for controlling it is there. What you've described is not so easily controlled, and is much more dangerous. Under the circumstances, I think that your friend would be well-advised to look for another horse. Some habits are simply too dangerous for anyone but a professional to deal with. The professionals aren't always successful in dealing with them, either, but at least their greater experience allows them to evaluate the risk more accurately and act more quickly when something like this occurs.
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.