Haflinger Rides Out

Today in between raindrops I rode Tao the haflinger.  He has been here for about two weeks for training, and today we just did some walking and trotting in the indoor arena to check how he was moving.  He was a little sore last week from riding in the deeper sand footing, but today there didn't seem to be any lameness.  I've been rubbing him down with liniment and it looks like the minor heat and swelling I had seen is completely gone now, he is not painful at all.  Once I found him to be sound we went for a walk around the property.  We started by going over to the fenceline to look at the llamas.  No problems there, despite this morning's llama drama when they all got turned out to play in their field and had a noisy llama race to the west fence.  Then Miles and Mahzi the dogs walked in front of us so Tao could be brave walking through the shallow puddles in the first pasture.

We went all the way to the back side of the property and Tao was relaxed, walking nicely on a loose rein.  When we looped around the back side to the NW corner of the property, the neighbor's horses charged the fence at the same time as the dogs took off after a jack rabbit.  This is the second jack rabbit I've seen since we moved in here six months ago and WOW those rabbits are HUGE and FAST.  I imagine that these creatures are where the legend of the jackalope came from.  My dogs didn't have even the slightest chance of catching it, but they sure had a fun time running after it. 

Poor Tao was awfully nervous about all the running and thought he should go with the dogs.  I kept talking to him and we walked around each of the log jumps so he could focus on those instead of worrying about where the dogs went.  Distracting him with a thinking task did the trick.  He did settle down again, and we resumed walking back towards the house along the North fence line.  He was still on high alert, though, especially since the dogs who had been acting as his body guards had gone AWOL.  Then the neighbor horses sneaked up on us and charged a second time (it was a cold day and everybody was excited), at the same time as my West pasture horses (Darby & Friends) began running and bucking.  That was a bit much for Tao, and he took off cantering South towards the arena along the fence line with Darby's herd.

Tao definitely showed me how he has learned to be "on the muscle" over the past several months, no pulling of reins nor one rein stops were going to be effective once he took off.  In situations like these when the horse is dead set on bolting I really believe that I have to either ride it out or bail off.  A one rein stop would have either thrown him off balance and he would have fallen, or to be really honest I've met a lot of horses who can still run quite fast with their head turned dramatically to the side.  If I had taken a tight hold of the reins in an effort to stop him I feel sure that he would have started the rearing he had been doing at his other barn.  I decided to just ride him through it, keeping a very soft feel of his mouth, with a rhythmic give and take of the reins that matched his canter stride.  This rhythm and breathing pattern tends to calm horses, I use it a lot with my retired racehorses in this type of situation.  Something about finding a good rhythm is soothing to them, it's like they get hypnotized by their own footfalls.  I kept talking to him and after about an eighth of a mile he came back to the walk.  He took a deep breath, and by then the dogs had rejoined us.  We all walked quietly back to the barn on a loose rein with no further problems.

This horse obviously was worried and tense about riding out alone into the back forty, so that's something I'll continue to work on until he becomes more confident.  Once he is quiet and confident out there I think the bolting and the "on the muscle" will stop, he only did it because he was nervous and unsure of the situation:  fight or flight.  As he learns to be brave and confident in different situations that fear response will cease.  Fighting with him by getting rough on his mouth would only increase his anxiety and increase the fight/flight reaction, thus making the behavior worse. This is definitely a case of a nervous horse reacting in a stressed manner, and once he learns he has nothing to be nervous about he will be fine.  I started this horse under saddle years ago, and he did a lot of trail riding at that time and became quite confident and skilled.  He always has been the type of horse who gets concerned about whether he's doing it right, though, and he has always needed a lot of positive reinforcement. The calmer he is the slower and steadier he rides.  I'm very excited to have him back at Bit of Honey to show him again what a pleasant and plucky fellow he can be. 

I may also take him out to the back forty with a more confident horse a few times until he realizes he's safe.  This makes me miss Major, my old OTTB.  He was my go-to pony horse for this kind of situation.  Major, Tao, and I made many laps together on the farm behind my old place when Tao was younger and first learning to trail ride.  Currently I have a couple older mares here who can probably do the job just fine, and I've been meaning to teach one of them to be a pony horse anyway.  Stay dry!