# Horse gets BRATTY by end of day?



## Speed Racer (Oct 21, 2009)

Fairly young horse and very long day. I'd be peeved at that schedule, too!


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## calicokatt (Mar 5, 2012)

Oh, believe me, I'M peeved 6 hours in, too! I have 4 kids that show in each of these shows,and the day can get seriously long. But we do have to find a way to improve the behavior... We've had other young horses that we've taken to these shows and generally, they get more relaxed by the end of the day, so I'm kind of at a loss..


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## Skyseternalangel (Jul 23, 2011)

That's a long day!! He's just not used to it, is all. The more shows you go to and the more breaks he gets, the better.

Though honestly I would try not to sign up for classes past the 6 hour mark. The next show, slowly go past it until you can get to all of the classes that you plan on doing.


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## calicokatt (Mar 5, 2012)

For her to qualify for fair, she had to stay for all the classes that she stayed for, but now she's qualified, she can do whatever she likes in performance. She has to complete one more gaming show (this Sunday) and then she can also do those in shorter increments.

Showmanship usually starts at 8, riding classes often don't start until 11 or so. It goes pretty quickly after that, I would guess that on average, she would be done with hunt seat eq. and english pleasure by 12 or 1, and that's when we're planning to leave. 

He didn't have this problem at his gaming show, so I'm thinking that my daughter's stress over wanting to do well at performance is compounding the issue. I've asked another girl if she would ride him for a half day at the next performance show for us, so he doesn't have my daughter getting frustrated to deal with. 

How about some thoughts on management during the day? He wouldn't drink on saturday. He ate *some* of his grass hay in the morning, and I offered him a small flake of alfalfa at the lunch break, hoping that would give him some sense of reward. He finished the alfalfa in no time flat... Not 100% sure that was a good idea though. Is there something else I could be trying? 

Unfortunately there are only 2 more performance shows this summer (though one club is talking about adding one in July), so we won't get a lot of chances to gradually increase the time he's at the shows. There are a bunch of gaming shows though, so maybe I should have her go to all of those and just start with a few hours and work up? At fair, the classes are spread out over more days, and he'll have more time in between classes, during which he'll be in his stall, but its a 5 day event. That is at the end of August, so we have a bit of time to work on it.

What are some thoughts on taking him to one of the gaming shows for a few hours and not even participating? Just bathe the night before, and do the whole routine as if we were going to show, and then just go hang out for a bit and leave?


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## oh vair oh (Mar 27, 2012)

He's probably just not in enough shape? I had a gelding that didn't have enough muscle and stamina to go for a 12 hour show day, and by the end of it he would just get nutty to try and get out of work. I usually hang up a hay net with timothy hay and let them have as much as they want in order to recoup calories. You mostly need to work up your riding time at home so that it translates to the shows. During full show season I'll ride for two hours in the early morning, and then another hour at night. We'll work on endurance/stamina work, such as timed long trotting, as well as the finer exercises.


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## calicokatt (Mar 5, 2012)

She generally rides 2 hours 4 days a week at home. She rides 5 classes, 15 minutes each, with probably 20 minutes warm up per class, so about 3 hours per show. You may be onto something there, oh vair oh! I tend to forget about the warm up time for each class, I'll see about upping his conditioning time this next few weeks.


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## oh vair oh (Mar 27, 2012)

Well not only the warm up, but they also have to stand for hours at the trailer/stall, walk on concrete and asphalt, and have to focus their attention throughout the entire day of grooming, tacking, warming up, and the energy from the other horses/sights/sounds/smells can take a physical toll. I would definitely up to riding 6 days a week (if possible) and work on conditioning - like long trotting for 5, 10, 15 minute increments over the next couple of months.


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## equiniphile (Aug 16, 2009)

What I would do in this situation is alternate what you do at each show. At your next show, take him in the morning, do Hunt classes, and go home. Next show, he comes in the afternoon, does Western, and goes home. Ultimately, he's going to start associating the Western tack and classes with brattiness and exhaustion, and he might really come to despise Western. So this doesn't happen, make sure he's not always tired and irritated when Western classes come around by bringing him in fresh before they start. When he gets better with both portions of showing, you can start taking him for longer and doing more with him.


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## SketchyHorse (May 14, 2012)

Just kinda sounds like he was tired by the end of the day. It sounds like he had some pent up nerves & just mentally broke down. Gaming shows are completely different from Pleasure shows (obviously lol). My old gaming gelding would get a little "weird" during pleasure classes as well. He'd get real confused as to what was going on & basically try to charge down to some end of the gate. After hours of showing he'd break down too (bad attitude etc) & he was 13 with a lot of miles under him. He was used to gaming shows where it was constantly GO GO & he had no time to breath. Pleasure classes would throw him off balance a little & he'd be confused something was going wrong.

To me it sounds like your guy was having the same issues. Something about the show just kinda threw him off balance, he wasn't sure what to do, & just became progressively more bratty/nutty. Then at the next show he carried the bad experience with him. Personally, I would just take him to a small local show or something & ride him around. Just pleasure fun hacking type stuff. Taking him around the warm-up arenas etc, ride among everyone, just show him it's relaxing to be at the shows. It doesn't have to be GO GO or scary.


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## Ripper (Apr 1, 2012)

oh vair oh said:


> He's probably just not in enough shape? I had a gelding that didn't have enough muscle and stamina to go for a 12 hour show day, and by the end of it he would just get nutty to try and get out of work. I usually hang up a hay net with timothy hay and let them have as much as they want in order to recoup calories. You mostly need to work up your riding time at home so that it translates to the shows. During full show season I'll ride for two hours in the early morning, and then another hour at night. We'll work on endurance/stamina work, such as timed long trotting, as well as the finer exercises.


Very well said!!!


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## churumbeque (Dec 20, 2009)

Are you feeding them during the day? They could be hungry and getting cranky. Keep some hay in front of them and that should help.


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## calicokatt (Mar 5, 2012)

Yes, he had his normal grass hay in front of him all day and he didn't eat it. I gave him some alfalfa at the lunch break, and he ate that, but still wouldn't eat his normal hay.

Great idea about going just before the western classes, so he can start those fresh a couple times.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## usandpets (Jan 1, 2011)

You say he's worked 2 hours a day and 5 days a week. At the shows, he's worked for 3 hours but there is breaks between his sessions. I don't think he's physically exhausted but more mentally. When your daughter works him during the week, is it mainly for two hours straight? Or does she spread it out over the day just like the shows? I will assume that it's 2 hours straight. At the show, you are asking him to basically be on task for the whole day. You'll need to condition him to that. It's not much different than for us. If we jog for just an hour a day, we wouldn't last for a marathon unless we kept increasing our training time to close to that same length. You can keep working him 5 days a week. On the short days, refine what he does. A day or two of the week spread the training out over the day so he gets used to it. 

You can't expect a pleasure trail riding horse to jump into an endurance ride of 50 miles and last the whole way. They need to be conditioned into it. 

It might be good to do half day shows so he doesn't sour on them but I think he needs more mental conditioning to last longer in the day. Spend your weekends working on that and I'm sure he would be better on the show days.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

When I showed my horse and her comfort were my first priority. She was immediately returned to the stall when a class ended and was unsaddled and groomed, even hosed down if rather hot weather. We did 5 classes between 9am and 6pm and she was as fresh at 6 as she was at 9. I watched many riders sit around and chat like the horse was a chair. Guess who's horses quit by about 2 pm? The shows are stressful and since I was the only thing familiar to my mare I spent all my time with her.


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