I have an 8 year old gelding, he was started for about 5 mths and lightly hauled in 2002, he had almost all of 2003 off, He has been hauled weekly for the past 2-3 mths, we are starting to have a problem in the alley.
I have always "scored" him into the pen, dismounted and loosened his girth. I have always made him walk thru the alley into the pen before running, but with each race he is fighting to take off and I am trying to set him up. I know my nerves are playing a big role in this and I am trying my best to contain them, I thought working poles would help but he has gotten really pushy with them as well.
His personality is show me how to do it one time and I know, leave me alone and let me do it. I don't know if my method of training him is making it worse either. For instance, he was anticipating our turns too soon, I went through the pattern twice making him work past the barrels, once he did it right I quit him, now he's waiting for me.
I have basically done all his training that way, would that make him think I am trying to correct him when he's thinking I know how to do this right let me go show you, or am I pushing to hard too soon and need to let up on him? I guess we have never really had such a clash of wills as we did this past weekend and I want to do what's best for him, I hope you understand what I am asking, it may sound funny, but we have always had an awesome partnership and I guess you could say we had our first big fight, he refused to walk straight in the alley and I refused to let him go sideways, half rearing up when he didn't get his way, in the end he did walk but it sure didn't feel good going in..
Sorry so long Thank You in advance
Traci
It sounds like you need to do some slow work away from home instead of trying to make runs on him. He is understanding that he is supposed to "GO" and you need to be teaching him that he doesn't have to run every time he goes down that alley and through the pattern. Just "scoring" him in the alley isn't enough and you are going to have to learn to control your nerves so that he doesn't feed off of your apprehension.
Martha Wright
