Horse Panics when being Saddled

Came back over and went to cinch him up a little bit and he just kind of went flip Pull back and fell and hit me with his head on. He's anticipating getting scared. Talk me through what what happened for you to want to lead to call, you know, call me for help today. I went to get him out after two days. We came home from a long trip and my neighbor called wanted help move some cows and calves. So I went down, got him, brought him up, tied him to the rail, brushed him a little bit. Got the blanket, put it on him, put the saddle on him. And I was moving pretty fast. I mean, I was a little bit of a hurry. I was in a hurry compared to maybe normally the way I would, but he called me and said needed some help because he had some calves turned back. And he couldn't get to him on the four wheeler. So I threw the saddle on him, went around the other side, came back over and went to cinch him up a little bit. And he just kind of went flipped and he came across and he was tied. Not real short. And he pulled back and fell and hit me with his head on. And he came and he came over. And I mean, he the saddle was tight enough that when he dig a divot in his gravel and then grass, he dug a divot in it with the horn. I mean, then he jumped up and he was just like, gotcha. And I'm like, so. So, yeah, that that's all it would take for it to be a one time because he was very scared in that moment for him. And like he was probably really scared. And it was a combination of him being tied the cinch and you being in a little hurry, moving around him a little quicker. You know, the combination of those things led to the incident of him pulling back. Right. But now that was a one time learning experience being now he's scared about getting saddled and probably wouldn't take much to get him to pull back being tied up either. OK, so so now it's like, OK, well, what do we need to do to prep it? So basically, we're going to go back to the basics and we're going to kind of restart him with it. And we'll see how well he progresses with it, what it takes to kind of get there. But what I would suggest to you moving forward is we're going to teach him to be ground tight. And I would I would not saddle him tied up to something moving forward. But just just based on like how you're approaching him, we're going to break him down into steps. We're just going to just start with some basic things and work our work our way up. So one of the first things I want to see is just how well he can handle me approaching him with energy. So we call this the drunken sailor exercise. Yeah. And so like he looks calm enough in here that I don't feel like I need to get him used to the environment or something. You know, he just came off a trailer and now he's here. But we're just going to jump jump right into it. And so how old is he? Seven. He's seven. And he's like a pretty seasoned ranch horse. Yes, he rode him a lot on the barrel racing. And so for me, I would expect a seasoned horse to be more OK with me coming up to him like this, because this has nothing to do with being tied or being saddled. This is just me approaching him. Does that make sense? And so this is right off the bat. We didn't have to look very far to find find a hole. And so I would call what I'm doing right now is an exercise to prep him for being saddled. So I would consider and the way I would look at it is the saddling him is the maneuver. I want him to be great at saddling. So I'm going to find several exercises to do before I saddle him to hopefully have the saddling going well, because I'm not a fan of carrying that saddle around. It looked fairly heavy. It's probably 40 pound saddle carrying that around and trying to do this all at once. Like you get yourself wore out pretty quick doing that. So if I can find some other things to do to prepare him and I'm doing this fairly low key, like I could be a lot more energetic about it. Now, when you're doing this, if somebody at home is watching and you guys decide to try this, just be aware if you scare them enough doing this, they can turn and kick at you. So I'm mindful of staying by their shoulder and keeping their nose tipped into me while I do it. And then when he chooses to stand still and he relaxes, then I touch him. So there is an element of feeling timing there that if he was still twitchy, like when you saddled him, you were kind of like going to put that saddle on no matter what. I would feel my way through it. If I go to bring the saddle up and he quivers, I'm going to retreat and maybe just wave the saddle up and down. Which is also why I do a lot of preparation before the saddle. Because again, the saddle is heavy. So even if I'm colt starting, I get them really good with my hands, the ropes, the saddle pad, probably a tarp, all before the saddle ever goes up there. So by the time I walk up with the saddle, the saddle is easy. Does that make sense? Because the saddle is heavy and awkward to deal with and it's hard to be really polite, really slow and easy with it. So that's why I prep it with a lot of other tools that are easier to use than a saddle. So by the time I get to the saddle, that's the easy thing. For all those reasons. Now see how he's leaving his leg cocked? So that's improvement. Yep, we'll leave it alone now. So now I'm just going to walk away from him and just kind of leave him alone for a minute. And then I'm going to re-approach him and this time I'm just going to use the lead rope. And see how he handles that. And so I'm just trying to be really big and exaggerated. I get the rope all the way out to the end, throw it over there. And a lot of horses that are not quite tame yet will have issues with this. And he's having no issues. But this is like typically, for most horses, they are going to get bothered when you go to do this for the very first time they've ever had it. And now he's reading the situation going and he's like, yeah, it's fine. Because theoretically that should be a little harder than what I was doing before. But he didn't react to it at all. So that's great. So we're on the right track. So let's move on straight away. So I'm going to use this as like a tarp or a feed sack. So if you didn't have one of these, you just grab a plastic bag or a tarp. Feed bags work really good. Just something really light and soft that you can move all around him. But you can see it was like me approaching him seemed to be the biggest issue. Because like already now he's handling that just fine, right? Now, he wasn't very committed to that. He stepped off like a little bit out of habit. But he didn't keep going. And then he stopped and he relaxed his leg. So I'm not going to do anything about it this time. But if he were to keep moving, I'm going to over-agree with him. Because he's, when a horse, this is a really important tip. This is like what I do with every, whenever there's like a problem situation, this is the way I filter it. I ask myself, where does the horse want to be? So when you step into him and he goes away, he's saying, I feel more comfortable over here. I feel less comfortable with you. So the way to turn things around 100% instead of just partially, because a person could just slow down. I could just go slower and kind of sneak my way in here and ease the pad up. You could find a way to manage it like that. But the way to get it to really be fixed is to not only offer him a good deal here. Like I want you to be slow and polite with how you saddle him. But I would also want him to understand that it's hot lava over there. So if he goes over there, all I'm going to do is actually not get quieter. I'm going to get a little bigger and actually add pressure and go from, there's just energy with me walking with the pad into here, to I'm actually pressuring him saying, no, I'm asking you to go over there. Let's go over there a little more until he'd go, I'd rather not go over there. Basically, I'd give him up to three steps. If he takes two steps away, I'm not going to make a big deal about it. But if he takes three, now, and let me just show you what I would do here. So if I came over here and he took three steps, I would go, oh, let me help you go over there. And I would put a feel on the halter and I would drive him a little bit. And I would say, this is what it looks like if I'm asking you to move over there. But if I'm not asking you to move over there, you don't need to go over there. So hopefully what I just did looks different than this. Does that make sense? And so it gives them that contrast. So it's like, it's not just about slowing down and being more polite with the saddle. It's also about getting him to stand even better. It's like, because I've seen people where they had the horse solid enough. They got a saddle on them, but they couldn't get the saddle off of them. So it's like with everything there is with horses, a lot of times, like it's human nature to go, we can do it or we can't do it. But I don't look at it that way at all. I say, where are we at with it? It's like, okay, I can get this done with this horse. Could one of my interns get this done with a horse? Could the owner do it with a horse? Could a kid do it with the horse? Could somebody that knows nothing about horses whatsoever, without being instructed, get it done with a horse because they're so gentle and so quiet with it. So there's levels of how solid the horse is with it, right? And so that's what we want to be heading towards with him, is getting him to where he can really own it. So I'm going to give him two tests for his pullback, the pullback issue. That's what we're going to be looking at right now. So I use two ropes when I do this because if they get really bothered, they can try to whirl away. And I don't want him to pull away from me. So here's the first test. So it's like when a horse is going forward or standing still or backing up, it's like a different box in their brain. So to ask him to go from a backup to forward can be tricky. So if he's at a standstill and I pull on this, he comes forward off of it. Now I pulled it a little bit quicker to see if I could kind of incite a reaction there. He didn't have one because he wasn't in the backup box. But when they pull back, they're thinking back up and then they're stuck, and that's when they get more bothered. So I'm going to back him up and then put a feel. You can see there's just a little bit more reaction but not bad. So this is good news because if he had a really bad pullback issue, that would trigger it. But I do like to mess with this a little bit where I back him up and then I just ask him to come forward pretty quickly. Again, no reaction, not a bad reaction there. So we'll go on to the next one. So I'm going to put this snap on the halter as well. And then the lead rope that was already on him is going to go around a front leg. And so I'm going to ask him to lower his head and give his leg at the same time. And this will trigger reactions for a lot of horses. So be ready to step back if you need to. So I'm just maintaining pressure here. So when he pulls his foot backwards, the pressure would increase if I didn't follow him. But horses that don't have a pullback issue, they won't react to this. So I'm just sticking with him here, letting him solve the puzzle. So there's no relief for backing up. But he's not flipping over because I'm not locking down on it like he would if he was tied. But the combination of it being... there, you see that? Yep, that was the moment where he thought through it. And instead of relying on his pranimal instincts to pull back to pressure, he gave and thought forward. Now he gets relief. But what's interesting is just pulling on the halter wasn't enough. But by making it a combo of the leg and the head, that made him feel more claustrophobic. Which is exactly what you had going on when he was tied up and you were saddling him. One or the other probably would have been okay, but the two together were too much. But yeah, he just scared himself. Because what's cool is this horse is really good-minded. He doesn't want to be bad or difficult about this. He just scared himself a little bit. But how quickly he recovered from this, that's an exceptionally well response. That's really good for the issue. So we're going to take that and we'll try to saddle him up. But all that went fairly well. So let's just see what we got. Until a horse is really solid, I would still have you do this. And just work on walking into him and throwing that pad up there multiple times before you reach for your saddle. And there's a saying that I really like. Saddle them the first time like it's their last time. And saddle them their thousandth time like it's their first time. Meaning it should all be kind of the same. So it's not uncommon for me, even on an older horse that I'm riding, to still do some of this. Because it's like why not just check this out and then they don't feel a big surprise. And I like how he's handling me walking side to side. Now I don't normally do this, but I'm going to throw this up there just so it doesn't bang him on the side. Because they're metal stirrups and they're kind of heavy. Just to give him as good of an opportunity as I can. But again, if he wants to move around, I'm not going to try to stop him. So if we rewind the tape, when you guys were saddling him, you were holding him and he was saddling him. And he went to back up, you tried to stop him. I don't do that. That makes them feel even more claustrophobic. I would say, oh you want to back up? Let me help you back up. Because his idea is to back up. I'm going to make that idea uncomfortable. But you see, when I got up here with the saddle, I just put the saddle up there nice and easily. Because I don't like carrying that heavy saddle around. So there you saw him get a little hesitant with me over there. But it wasn't too bad. Whatever other one you were riding was a lot smaller than him. Yeah, she is. She's pretty small. I can tell that here. That's the one I should have used for the mounting. So he's talking about a bareback mounting challenge. Beginning of every month, we do a horsemanship challenge on Patreon. And we do usually a pretty darn good giveaway prize for a random participant of that. So those of you watching the video, if you guys want to get in on those challenges, make sure you join Patreon. I'm going to leave the breast collar alone for now. So you can see, he's a little hesitant. But he is standing still. And so I can soften him right here just by asking him to lower his head. It's like, hey, you don't need to get worried about it. Just put him back in a good frame of mind. And just say, hey, just because I'm over here doesn't mean anything scary is happening. So I'm just saddling him smoothly. But I wouldn't proceed. It went from green to slightly flashing to yellow. Not red, just flickering towards yellow. And then as soon as I slowed down and asked him to lower his head, it went back to green. And that's what you've got to look for when you're doing this. Also, when you reach for your cinch, reach under with your left hand. Because if they were to get bothered and start kicking, you don't want your face under there too far. Now, when I do this for the first time, I'm just going to leave it like this. And this is also what I would do with a colt. I'm putting my hand on his withers and I'm pressing down to give him another thing to think about. In addition to the cinch here. And I'm pulling it pretty hard. And I'll relax it. And everything I'm doing with him today, this is your homework for five days. If you sent him to me for training, it wouldn't be ideal if I worked on his liberty for five days. Like, I'm not moving this needle-told-you saddle. Or if I just saddled him up any way I could. He went backwards and moved away, but I just kept going with him until he finally stood still. And then I got him saddled and I just rode off and went and moved cows. That wouldn't be fixing your saddling issue. That would be just managing it. So what I'm insinuating is you've got to put your trainer hat on. And you've got to say, okay, if my job is to fix this horse's saddling issue, I've got to go through all these steps that I'm just learning about to reinforce it to get it solid where eventually, maybe by the end of those five days, anybody could saddle him without having to think about all these extra steps. I call that deliberate practice. As a trainer, if I have a horse that has a specific issue with something, say they're hard to catch. Say you send me a horse here, say you send me him to teach him flying lead changes. And I walk into his pen and he's super hard to catch. Guess what I'm not working on? I ain't working on flying lead changes. I'm going to teach him to want to come catch me in the pen. And that's called deliberate practice because I know that we need to get him to connect to the human before we have any business working on advanced maneuver. Does that make sense? Now, hopefully it wouldn't take that long and then I'd still have time in the training hour to work on lead changes too. But you get the idea. That's deliberate practice. So professionals will do that, but a lot of people that are not, it's not your job to train this horse. You own the horse and get to enjoy him. It would be easy for you to just kind of get him saddled up because the neighbor needs help moving cows again and be kind of in a hurry about it. But if you just take five days and let this, instead of just enjoying riding him, take your time and practice the saddling process, it wouldn't take too much to turn this around. Now, I'm only going to cinch it up just tight enough that I don't think the saddle will roll on him. The other thing I do is I cinch him up three times. So this is time number one. This is just enough that if he hops around, I probably could get him stopped without the saddle rolling on him. The next time I cinch him up is going to be to take out whatever slack he put in there from almost every horse inflates a little bit when you first go to cinch him up. And then the third cinching is going to be what I'm going to do right before I step on. I'm going to make sure it's snug enough it's ride ready. Now that he's saddled up too, I'm just going to let him stand because right now it's like a lot of horses can get in a hurry to do something right now. It's like I just want him to stand still and be relaxed there because he just did the maneuver that we wanted him to do. So I'm just going to let him just sit and process and make it a... I'm reinforcing what you had before the incident. We'll call it. The incident. Before Cattlegate happened. You see how he's dropping his head and he's moving around. He's noticing flies. That all tells us he's in a really good frame of mind. See him licking chew? But he was tense there. So if I hadn't given him that time, I would have pushed through. He's a more introverted horse, so he holds it on on the inside. So by the time you see it outwardly of him moving around, he's fairly bothered. And so we've got to get to where we're reading him just a little bit more deeper and going, even though I just cinched him up and he stood still, he was tight. Now he's not tight anymore. He's blinking, he's licking and chewing, he's noticing flies. He's come through that. Now we can go do whatever and it would go pretty well. So guess what we're going to do now? We're going to unsaddle him. Mission accomplished. Out of everything we did, I would say the approach of a human to him is the most scary element of what it takes to saddle a horse. If you've got a saddle in your hands and you're trying to get on their back, you're approaching them also with the saddle. So I think the more you focus on the very first thing we did of approaching him with energy, not why he's tied up, but approaching him with energy, that's going to move the needle. And then you now moving forward, doing it with more feel as you approach him, that's going to set you and him up for success. Sound good? Good. All right. Thanks for bringing him over today.