Training Tips

If he wants to move, let him, but direct the move/his feet by having him circle around you. Just let the wand rest there on the nearside of his back in the saddle region (some accept it in the neck area early on, too) and he should slowly wind down to a stop all on his own. If he doesn't and gets wound up again, remove the wand and go for the retreat walk again, and back up to what he was comfortable with earlier. Be patient. Be compassionate. Be most focused on helping him. This isn't about you, this is about being very perceptive to his signals so that you can help him, using advance/retreat.

Once he can handle standing still willingly (never force him to stand still there if he's not comfortable with that; they work out fears via being allowed to move their feet, not feeling trapped), then you can start rubbing him with the end of the wand with plastic in that back/saddle area region so he realizes: it feels good, not bad. I like to use the tip of the training wand if I can to give him a good, pleasurable scratching there.

Now you've got a "base" set down that you can return to as you build further from there. Rub with the wand tip with plastic there and quickly dart over his comfort zone line slightly (be perceptive!), but just as quickly dart the wand right back to base/his comfort zone area before he has time to react.

Stop here and read on my web site a little more in depth how we desensitize a horse to touch/something they are afraid of being touched with to gain even more insight here -- this is toward the end of my round penning tutorial, but the desensitizing concepts will apply to you there as well:

Work to desensitize the horse that route, until he can handle the wand with plastic touching him all over, playing the advance/retreat dance throughout. A comforting hand on the horse speeds along the process.

It's so important to grasp there to be RETREAT-focused, not goal-focused. Via the retreats, the horse digests, literally, "I didn't die." I would rather see people err in the direction of too many retreats than not enough. As it regards retreating, in my book when desensitizing, there is no such thing as too many retreats! But I see far more people err in the direction of focusing too much on the end goal and not retreating enough back to where the horse was comfortable for the horse to digest his successes incrementally.