When Coco gets into a bad way with spooking she starts napping and walking backwards and hopping around the place – all so she can get as far away as possible from whatever she’s looking at. It can be very frustrating because no matter how much leg I put on, sometimes there’s just no way to get her to budge. During our last spook-a-thon during a schooling session however, I was taught a new method to get her moving forward again and I have to say I was very impressed with how well it worked so I thought I’d share it with you all! Check it out…
When your horse starts avoiding whatever it is they’re spooking at, turn their head away from whatever it is and ask them to move forward. Then quickly turn their head back the other direction while still asking them to move forward. Turn them away again and then back again. Continue to do this until they start walking forward as normal.
Hopefully that makes sense but if not, check out the video below where you can hear my instructor telling me what to do and you can see how it helped to work Coco out of her spook-fest and get her back jumping again.
I imagine the idea behind it is that you make it so difficult for your horse to do what they want to do that eventually they give up and decide that your way is much easier. I’m not saying that this is going to solve the problem entirely but if you’ve ever been in the situation where you’re exhausted from fighting to try and get your horse to move forward when they start spooking – then this is definitely worth giving a go.
It’s worth trying anyway so if you need to give this method a go, make sure to let me know how you get on! Or if you have any other helpful tips you use for dealing with this issue I’d love to hear it…I need every tip I can get!
Thanks for reading,
Orla