# Starting to take my horse on trail rides



## DebC (Sep 17, 2015)

I have a 4 year old TB that I am starting to trail ride. I have owned other horses and I always like to break up their ring work with trail rides. He has been good for the most part walking around the property. One time when I turned around to head back towards the barn he got excited, but not too bad. Another day I was riding him around the track, which we had done numerous times. There was someone out in the jumping field doing a course and that kind of blew his mind. He started doing a bucking/rearing kind of thing. Yesterday was my first time actually taking him out on the trails. I went with another horse and rider. He was fine on the way out. We went out a trail that went to a big field rode around the big field then headed back on the trail we came from. He was looking but still very good. We came to a cross trail and decided to take a right and go on that trail. Well he knew we were turning on a trail that didn't go back to the barn. That was when he started his buck/rear. I made him go a little further and then we turned around. When we got on the trail heading back to the barn he started again. Once we got own towards the first barn he was calm again. I took him in the ring and rode him a little longer than rode him back to the barn he is in and he was fine.
Looking for any tips. Should I just take him out for short little rides outside the ring and then gradually go further each time? Not sure if that would work or not. I had another horse once who would stop moving when he wanted to go back. He never bucked or anything while I pushed him on to go forward and it gradually stopped.


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## Oreos Girl (May 24, 2011)

Most advice that I have heard was make being at the barn hard work so it sounds like you did a good job. I very seldom dismount at my house, I dismount before I get home.


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## phoenix (Jun 7, 2010)

He's young and in a new environment, so long as you can ride it out just keep taking him on short trails with a more experienced buddy. Putting more miles on him will do wonders and getting experience will help to relax him more. 

My horse would tense, buck and not want to go when we first started going out and he was older than your tb and now he's great in trail. It'll just take time. 

Maybe you could hand walk him out on the trails to get him used to going out.


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## DebC (Sep 17, 2015)

I hand walked him out on the trails yesterday. At one point he got very nervous to the point he was shaking. I turned him around in circles until he started to focus more on that then his surroundings. Heading back I would stop him and let him look around for a short time and then walk forward. I would also turn him around on the trail and head away from the barn again so he didn't think he was just going back to the barn. He did seem to relax.


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## ManicMini (May 4, 2015)

Do you have the option of taking him out in a group or with a calm horse that handles trails really well? Every time I do something new, I like to have my more experienced friend with her unflappable mare accompany us. That's what I did the first time I took my horse riding alongside the road and up a mountain trail. Nothing can tell a horse there's nothing to be scared of better than another horse!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## DebC (Sep 17, 2015)

ManicMini said:


> Do you have the option of taking him out in a group or with a calm horse that handles trails really well? Every time I do something new, I like to have my more experienced friend with her unflappable mare accompany us. That's what I did the first time I took my horse riding alongside the road and up a mountain trail. Nothing can tell a horse there's nothing to be scared of better than another horse!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_



I did take him out with another horse. Doesn't seem to make a difference.


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## enh817 (Jun 1, 2012)

Just keep working on it. It sounds more like an insecurity issue that a major behavioral issue, though your idea of working him in the arena when you get back is very good to keep behavioral issues from developing. 
I think if I were you, I would try to keep trails short for a while. Set the horse up for success, don't ask him for more than he can handle. Just go out until you feel him start to get nervous. Pet on him and walk him in easy circles until he relaxes, then head back, do a little work in the arena, and then maybe even head back out for a short trip down the trail. Again going until you feel him get nervous, working through it until he's calm and then walking back and doing a little work in the arena. Rinse and repeat, hopefully going a little further each time. Maybe even try dismounting out on the trail and making it feel like a good place out there, in his mind. 

Are there any obstacles that you come to on your trail rides, like water, big hills, things to jump over, etc? When I have a nervous, spooky horse, I like to find scary things out on the trails (I'm surrounded by almond orchards and there are pretty steep irrigation reservoirs all over the place, we climb in and out of the empty ones). I will work through these things with the horse, even if it takes an hour or more to get them through it. 
I have found this helps with a number of things - 
spooking: once they successfully get through the really scary stuff, the little things they were spooking at before don't seem like such a big deal. 
confidence: the horse builds confidence in my judgement, because he sees that something I wanted him to go through/over/up/etc, that he thought might kill him, was actually not that big of a deal. He also builds confidence in himself and his ability to carry us through scary stuff. 
mental stimulation: some horses need a 'job' to think about to stay sane, rather than just meandering down the trail for hours. 
energy: if you have some steep stuff you can climb up and down, I find it's the best way to take some of the edge off a fresh/high energy horse when we first set out on the trail, so it's not a battle the whole way trying to keep them under me.


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