DANGEROUS ALLEY PROBLEMS

[BECKY H]

HEY MY NAME IS CASSIE HARMON I AM FROM GATESVILLE. I DONT KNOW YOU BUT MY MOTHER BECKY USE TO COME OVER AND GET LESSONS WITH ED ON HER COLTS. I HAVE A HORSE I HAVE PUT THREE YEARS INTO AND HAVE TAKEN HIM SLOW AND ALSO HAVE HAD TONS OF ALLEY WORK. THE OTHER DAY AT STEPHENVILLE(YOUR HUSBAND WAS THERE) HE REARED AND WOULDNT TURN LEFT OR RIGHT OR BACK UP WITHOUT REARING AND HE HAS FLIPPED ONCE WEN HE WAS 5 WITH ME OVER A FENCE. SO I GET A IFY BOUT IT. WITH OTHER HORSES HELPING HIM HE TRYS RUNNING THEM OVER AND WILL GO STRAIGHT FOR A FENCE AND GET VERY CLOSE TO IT AND REAR KNOCKING YOUR LEG ON IT. SO I WAS FORCED TO GET OFF AND WALK HIM TO THE ALLEY AND GET ON AND TRY TO KEEP HIM IN A FORWARD MOTION. I DONT WANT TO HAVE TO SELL HIM BUT I CANT PUT MY ELF IN THAT POSITION EVRYT TIME HE HAS ONLY DID THIS THOUGH ABOUT 5 TIMES REAL BAD. WE HAVE HAD A VET CHECK AND CHIROPRACTOR LOOK AT HIM. AND ALSO HAS A VERY PLEASING RUN IN THE ARENA ITS GETTING FROM POINT A TO POINT B THOUGH TO RUN. HOW SHOULD I TRY AND FIX HIM? AND DO U HAVE ANY VIDEOS ON ALLEY WORK? THANKS CA$$

[Bob Gould]

Dear Cassie,

Your situation doesn't sound too good!  I would want to be sure that your
horse doesn't have some kind of veterinary or chiropractic issue before I
started trying to correct any training problems.  Once you have eliminated
any issues of soreness or pain, then and only then, can you think about
retraining.  And if he doesn't have some sort of pain or soreness, then you
DO have a very large problem that will be hard to overcome.  It will take
lots of time NOT competing and making runs but instead doing slow work and
lots of scoring in the alley and gate.
Martha Wright

[acheela]

I agree with Martha on making sure this horse isn't hurting somewhere. A horse that is trying so hard to get out of his job is sure trying to tell you something. Make double sure that you take this horse to a good barrel horse vet that is used to looking for specific pain related problems, and also a good chiro. Check his teeth, and I wouldn't rule out x-rays of his legs. Horses are generally trying to please you, and if he's working this hard to say no, you sure need to find out why.