Terrible Twos Tuesday

Learn to have complete control over your emotions. Do not let fear, anger, ego, or anything else emotional take over whilst you are working with young horses. They are the ones freaking out about everything new and they need you to be the calm and collected leader. Yesterday I was riding Donny who is normally really well behaved and has been one of my easiest horses to work with,things didn’t quite go as expected. He is a 13yo stallion who was green broken when he was a young horse and then has been let free with mares since then. So I am actually surprised at how good he has come around. We were working around lovely nothing was wrong and then  after we did our first trot and pulled up he decided that standing on 2 legs was way more fun the 4 lol. And we were completely vertical not little small rears. The entire time I felt in complete control of my body and never once did I fear I was going to come off, I stayed level headed and once he returned all four hooves to the ground I asked him to continue working as if nothing had happened. We went forward and straight back up in to trot. He never even felt like he was going to do it again and was a bit confused that he didn’t get a reaction out of me. If I had of reprimanded him it would only knock his confidence with me on his back and that’s what my main goal is at the moment is to create a great trusting relationship with him under saddle. By asking him to return and do exactly what we just did he realised that his behaviour did not get him out of work. The only thing I did differently was that I asked him for the trot transition a few more times than I had originally planned to ensure this behaviour was out of his system. Why did he do it? Well I actually have no idea what was going through his head but I dare say that it probably had to be the two days off he had over the weekend and the fact I gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t do much lunging with him prior to getting on. We have had this same routine for a while now but I guess he is starting to get a bit fitter and stronger and is starting to feel good about himself again. If they make a mistake don’t lose your temper at them, use the opportunity to train them and teach them some better habits.