There is a person here in Georgia, www.marvwalker.com, I really like
him, he has his own "join up " TYPE roundpen deal. It really worked
great with my horses THEN came along Traveller and he completely
freaked out. I barely sent him around and he JUMPED out of the
roundpen, coulda killed himself, knocked half the roundpen down. I
called marv walker on the PHONE and asked him what the HECK and he
said the whole KEY to any roundpenning is how a horse perceives and
responds to pressure. He said to some horses, a look from you is
intense pressure. For some you could whack them with a whip and they
perceive it as moderate pressure. He said the whole key to all the
roundpenning is that the human recognizes the degree of pressure a
horse perceives when you are roundpenning and you MUST back off the
pressure. I have three horses that cant take roundpen pressure. Two
are walkers and one is Tivar. None of them can stand pressure on a
lunge line either, they just start racing round and round in a
mindless fear state, just panicked, either on the lunge or in the
roundpen. Karen says Tivar will work on a lunge but I must be doing
it in that roundpen manner he fears because when I put him on a lunge
he starts going fast in a circle in a very frantic upset manner until
I force him to stop and pet him and talk soft and calm him and get him
"back". I think these horses that do this are extremely sensitive and
intelligent, very very sensitive to pressure of any kind. I dont
lunge thee horses at all or even try, with them instead, I just put
them on a lead and go through some laid back exercises where we walk,
i have them whoa, flex right, flex left, sidepass, then we go to the
mounting block.
Janice
--
even good horses have bad days sometimes.
