Horse Problem - Grass Snatcher - Horse snatches grass in round pen during round penning exercise

He's come in to try to achieve farrier work without sedation, which would have been possible apart from I have found huge back problems (he only arrived this morning) he's cow hocked and pigeon toed and is tucked up through his back. (Chiropractor and dentist are booked for this week and maybe hormone tests!) I think his farrier problems are due to the back rather than any memory of his breaking in as it's only one back foot that he really has a problem with.

My question is that in the round yard he will turn in toward me when I ask, cock his ear at me, lower the head, lick and chew - so then I allow him to come in and as soon as I take the pressure off him, he starts grazing. He's fed, on a well grassed field, this is not through hunger, but I cannot fathom why he feels the need to plunge grasswards as soon as I let my energy down and allow him to come with me. In the round yard he is turning into me, with resistance, bearing in mind we are only on session 2, he'll snake at me, but move onto the direction that I ask and resume a submissive stance, yet as soon as I relinquish pressure and energy he dives for the small amount of grass that is in the pen.

I would really welcome any thoughts you could offer on this. I am flummoxed by this and need to understand what he is thinking right then. I know it's early days for him yet but I have not experienced this before. I do then send him back out and repeat the round pen work, but very unusually for England we reached a temp of 35 degrees today so I was limited in just how much he could cope with physically, let alone emotionally. But as is the norm, rain is predicted tomorrow, so then hopefully a more comfortable temperature for him to work with. Should I keep sending him away? Many thanks.

It's the same with the horse. In the round pen exercise, we are releasing pressure for the at liberty desired submissive behavior of dropping the head. But the second he drops his head in that grass covered classroom, his mind is suddenly seeing the "ice cream sundae." And with horses, some eat to reduce nervousness (nothing to do with hunger). Chewing relaxes them. But we want their full attention on us, the "lead mare" in round penning exercises, and we want the head drop to be about submission/respecting your leadership and not have their mind then realize the "sundae" is suddenly within reach and if they're nervous, they know that eating the grass will help to reduce their inner tension. We want them to turn to US to remove that tension for them. Get it?

It's as simple as that, believe it or not. Having grass in the round pen can really be a problem progress wise, because you're giving the horse mixed signals then. "Yes, dropping your head reduces your pressure, right answer! But oops, no eating, pressure back on!" So you'll go back & forth mixed signal-wise and the horse just won't understand what is expected of him there.

Kill the grass, have only sand footing and you will have no problem getting this horse to move forward progressively and positively in his training, I'm sure.

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