>>>> She had always followed another horse. The insecure ones need to have their confidence gradually built up (in themselves and in your leadership). Read the article Robyn sent. Take the horse out with friend horses, practice changing places, practice leading. When you take him out alone hand walk him. That's a good time to hide the treats on the trail like Judy mentioned.
I'm much more comfortable with that approach too, Cherie. We also practice things like widening the gap between the horses, and we have some parallel trails in our woods - the horses know where the other horse is, but they aren't close together. Sometimes Cary will ride a horse out alone, but maybe the next ride, one of us will ride that horse while the other of us rides a buddy horse. We also try to ride different pairs when we do ride together - not always Cary on Skjoni and me on Sina, for instance. Horses need to learn that different horses can be their trail mates, so they won't be overly reactive when they ride out with a horse that either is their very best buddy, or their pasture-nemesis. (Not that we have any of those!) I know we haven't dealt with every possible horse-idiosyncrasy that's possible, but it sure works for a lot of horses. >>>> I often walk out a ways, turn around before the usual end of the ride, go home a short distance, turn around go a little further, let them stop and graze, etc. Let them learn the trail but after the first few times keep them guessing. When you walk him a number of times and he seems confident, walk him out and ride him back. Sounds good to me. Karen Thomas, NC No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.7/1151 - Release Date: 11/25/2007 4:24 PM
