Can’t catch me

12 Jan Can’t catch me

Would you like your horse to walk up to you to be caught or at least look at you and turn to face you when they see you coming?

How you catch your horse (or not) says a lot about your relationship with him. If you find your horse difficult to catch it’s usually because your horse is either fearful, disrespectful or simply doesn’t want to spend time with you.

What can you do about it?

Start in the round pen! If you don’t have a round pen, fence off a little paddock where you can move your horse around safely without them getting too far away from you.

You have to teach your horse to look at you and keep two eyes on you. It’s way easier to catch a horse that looks at you rather than the horse that shows you his bottom. Doing different groundwork exercises will get your horse respectful and with respect comes trust which is what we want. Also, you need to desensitise your horse so that they are not fearful of you or any of your tools including the headcollar.

When you catch your horse, don’t always work them. Take 10 mins and just go catch your horse, spend a little time with him in the paddock, and give him scratches on his favorite spot, maybe a carrot. And then just let them go again. Even if you decide to work them later in the day or have already done it. Make sure your horse actually enjoys spending time with you! Horses like to follow as long as they have a great leader (you) to follow. Otherwise the roles will reverse and your horse will be in charge of you if you don’t prove yourself to them.

In this round penning video is a good example of hard-to-catch little trouble. Meet Tilly

Tilly has become disrespectful to her owner and every time anyone gets even near her she turns around and gallops off. Also she is fearful so she needs lots of desensitising.

She is a very sweet little pony and I very much enjoyed working with her.