Horse Problem - Fear after falling down - Horse afraid after barrel racing fall
QUESTION: Hi Sylvia. I've been working on barrel racing with my 9-year-old gelding. He seemed to be catching on great. He took some wide turns and sometimes he wasn't sure about the barrels at all, but we were working on that. The problem came last week. He was going around the far barrel too fast and his feet went out from under him. I had the vet check him out, and he came out with not even a scratch to my broken wrist and really bruised side. Since then though, he seems scared of me. He won't come when I whistle, and when I approach him every way I know how he shies away. Eventually he'll let me come, and once I'm touching him, he calms down a little. I'll brush him out for a while and he'll warm up to me like he always did. I haven't ridden much this week, as my arm is in a cast, but when I did saddle him up, he seemed really nervous, which is really odd for him because he normally falls asleep. I walked him for a while and he was still a little jumpy, so I got on to see if that would help. It did for a while; when he felt me relaxed in the saddle he was ok. When we went down by the field where I have the barrels set up, the instant he saw them, he froze. I calmly walked him around for a couple of hours and we got closer to the barrels, but he was still jumpy and eyeing them the whole time. I put him back in the pasture when I was done riding and ten minutes later he seemed scared of me again. I feel like I'm getting nowhere; now every time I do anything with him I have to start from the beginning and as soon as it's over, we're back at square one. I haven't tried anything new since we fell, so I am really not sure what he's worked up about. This really bothers me since we were like best friends, riding for hours every day and enjoying every minute of it. Now I have to work just to get him to accept me. If you could help me figure this out, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
REPLY: Ouch! Sorry to hear you broke your wrist! What's happening there now is your horse is somewhat traumatized by the fall (and probably by seeing you get hurt, too). He's afraid it'll happen again. You're right to just keep slowly walking him through things patiently, so he can see that nothing bad is going to happen. That'll take some time, I'm sure. But there are also a couple of things I wanted to suggest to help you there, to get on top of his emotions.
First...for on the ground when you first get him out of pasture, use some "horse whispering" bonding techniques, which will instantly relax him and will break into his stress response, short circuiting them. I'm going to direct you to a link on my web site that will show you these techniques -- especially focus in on these two: 1) the finger in the mouth to feather the tongue, which gets them working their mouth and 2) dropping the head -- both those two done in succession will instantly manually relax him:
Every time he's tense on the ground there, do those techniques immediately. It'll stop his stressful response immediately.
Now for in saddle when he's showing that stress reaction, plant into his foundation the one-rein stop/safety bonding zone. I go over here how to build that into a horse's foundation:
Do it often if/when you see him tense in saddle and he's going to start settling down there and letting go of his fears.
Give all that a try and I think you'll get back on track soon!
By the way...I smiled when you said you got on him, arm cast and all. Ah, what a horsewoman! :-) I once rode my horse with a leg cast on from a broken leg. Just couldn't stand waiting the 6 weeks for the cast to come off (non-horse related accident break). And my horse took good care of me, even with me in a leg cast. Are we horse addicted or what?! LOL
Hope all this helps and good luck to you there!
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