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  • 31-10-2011 12:35pm
    #1
    maesdavid
    Registered Users Posts: 131 ✭✭


    i went on a hunt yesterday with my gelding he is a 8 year he has hunted for 4 years but yesterday he was mad he kept dropping his head and wanting to gallop is there anything i can do anything such thing as a calmer i can give him or can i do anything cheers


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    #2
    Yeager101
    Registered Users Posts: 41 ✭Yeager101


    maesdavid wrote: »
    i went on a hunt yesterday with my gelding he is a 8 year he has hunted for 4 years but yesterday he was mad he kept dropping his head and wanting to gallop is there anything i can do anything such thing as a calmer i can give him or can i do anything cheers

    The head going down etc is called 'Bearing down' and it's a bitch when your horse does it. Happened to me on a tank of a horse once and I was quickly told the best thing to do is jut ride with shorter stirrups so that you have better leverage when pulling the horse up and ringing his head up.
    You can get callers for the horse in most shops. Various strengths and various doses.


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    #3
    convert
    Registered Users Posts: 9,338 ✭✭✭convert


    It's natural that your horse would want to keep up with the other horses when you're riding him in a group. Is he used to being ridden in a group or do you only get the opportunity once every little while? If the latter, maybe you could find a few people who might go out for a group hack, which would help him settle down and get used to being in company. Have you hunted him before, or was he hunted by somebody else? Maybe they rode much more towards the front than you do, and he just wants to keep to the front. Also, he may have felt that you were restricting him too much and were going to prevent him from staying in company with the others.


    I'm not a fan of calmers for any circumstance. Besides the dangers of them if you give a horse too much (groggy horse jumping ditches, cantering on rough ground, etc. is not a good idea), they don't actually resolve the issue - they just mask it. You need to sort out why your horse is doing this (just excited at being out with a group) and find a solution to it - whether that's riding in a group more often, learning how to deal with your horse when he does that, (shortening stirrups will give you more strength, but it'll change your balance completely for normal riding, so not something which should be done suddenly).


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