# Misbehaving when other horses in the arena



## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

Sorry, this is going to be a long one. Thanks in advance to anyone who reads the whole thing!  

I've been having a problem with my horse lately, and I'm not entirely sure how to correct it. In short, he has been misbehaving under saddle, *but only when there are other horses in the arena.* 

It started very suddenly back in March- we were having a normal, pleasant ride in the arena. He was a little more forward than usual, which was great because he's usually on the lazy side. It was the first time I had been able to do a leg yield across the full diagonal length of the arena without him slowing down to a crawl by the end. Then, I was just doing a very simple 20m circle down at one end of the arena and right around the center line, he bucked. It wasn't a large buck, but was the first time he had _ever_ bucked under saddle in the two years that I had owned him. I gave him a little correction, then continued on the circle. This time, when we reached that spot, he bucked again and then bolted. I was thrown a little off balance and lost the reins, but once I got them back again he stopped without too much fuss.

Ever since then he's been a bit of a butt any time any other horses are in the arena. Basically, it's like he wants to be close to the other horse(s). He's mostly OK going along the wall, though if there's a horse ahead of him he gets a little bit harder to stop. If I want to pull away from the wall (to do a circle, for example), he acts like he doesn't know how to steer anymore. I try to make sure I don't let him counterbend, that he's balanced between the reins as we make the circle, and keep a strong outside rein, but he's perfectly happy to run sideways across the arena in these instances and just completely blows through the outside rein, no matter how strong it is.

It took me a while to make the connection to other horses being in the arena. It's never been something that he's cared about. After the incident in March, some days we'd have great rides, and others he would just be a jerk. It wasn't until about a month later when we were riding with just one other person, and then that person finished up and left, that I realized what was going on. Pretty much as soon as the person left he went back to being his normal self. Since then I've had the opposite happen, too: we'd be having a good ride alone in the arena and then someone would come in and he'd turn into a jerk.

He hasn't gotten away with a full blown bolt since that first time, but he's definitely still considering it, and I'm afraid to really push on him when other people are in the arena. Obviously, this needs to be done to get him over whatever this issue is, but I'm not sure I can control him, and I can't in good conscience risk someone else getting hurt.

I've taken to riding later in the evening when the arena is generally empty, which actually works pretty well with my schedule and how hot it has been lately, but I have a show coming up in a couple weeks and I'm afraid the warm up arena is a disaster waiting to happen!

Anyone have any experience with this behavior? Advice on how to fix it? Theories on why it came up seemingly out of the blue?

Some other background that may be relevant- before this, he's been a very reliable, steady horse. At shows he's typically just as well behaved and calm as he is at home; doesn't call out to other horses or anything. We also trail ride alone a lot, and he never has issues passing by other horses on the trail. After the first incident, I had him looked at by my vet who didn't find any pain anywhere. He's also been adjusted by the chiro, who didn't find anything major, and had his teeth floated, again with no major problems noticed. I've been working with him lately to make the jump from training level to 1st level dressage.


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

verona1016 said:


> I'm afraid to really push on him when other people are in the arena.


*This *is why he is being a jerk. You're physically backing down and not really pushing him through these moments. Which he is taking full advantage of. It's absolutely understandable if a horse that pulls this stuff is intimidating you. Not many people want to go through a fight with their horses. But I can promise you, your horse senses you backing down and he is running you around.

Perhaps having someone slap a western saddle on him, and hop on him for you? Sometimes it only takes a good long drill session or two for a horse to understand that no matter what, they need to listen. Someone who is willing to go through this fight (if he puts up one) which it sounds like he will. 

If you don't have someone who can help you with this. *You need to work on you. *You need to work on your own confidence and knowing that YOU can do this. Because you can.


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## frlsgirl (Aug 6, 2013)

I used to ride this young WB gelding. He was an angel for the first 10 months, and then suddenly, only day, he freaked out whenever someone pulled up in a trailer. He would just get excited, squeal, half-way rear, charge forward. Since I knew exactly what set him off, my RI would have me to complex schooling figures as soon as we could spot the trailer pulling onto the property. It worked most of the time, but I did have to do an emergency dismount one time because he got so out of control. He wasn't worked very much around that time so he just had a lot of built up energy and he chose that as his outlet. After that, nobody wanted to ride him because he was so unpredictable, but not riding him made him even more crazy. Right around that time he was getting into fights with his turnout buddy, so he was likely excited about other horses because he could re-test his herd ranking.

My guess is that your horse is just testing where he ranks with the other horses in the arena because he's insecure and full of energy and/or boredom. Was there are recent change in his boarding situation (new turnout buddy, new stable mate etc.)? 

Are you drilling him to death with Dressage? Can he ride the test in his sleep? My mare will mentally clock out when she's bored with my Dressage drills. 

So I would give him more to do, if you can keep his mind occupied that than his body will follow suit. Re-evaluate his feed too. They can get kind of crazy if they get more carbs than they need.


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## TXhorseman (May 29, 2014)

From what you describe, it sounds as though the change has taken place as you have begun work at moving from training level to first level dressage. It may be that you are trying too hard to achieve a goal while paying less attention to the relationship between you and your horse.

If you are pushing your horse without considering your horse's physical and psychological needs, he may be seeking support from other horses in the arena. Remember that classical dressage, as opposed to much of modern show dressage, is concerned primarily with the relationship between the rider and the horse. You want to work with your horse so that he seeks to fulfill your wishes because he wants to, not because he is afraid not to.

Think of your horse as a dance partner and consider how you would respond to a dance partner who tries to "make" you perform in a certain way. You would probably resist. In the worse case scenario, you would probably try to get rid of that partner and seek another who understood you better. Try to work "with" your horse and influence him to do what you desire as opposed to making him do it.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I agree that you need to sort him out. 

Personally I would ask a couple of friends to ride in the arena with me so that I could have a session whereby every time he even thought about doing something wrong I could get after him.

I would have them ride at him, overtake from behind, and generally 'buzz' him until he took no notice.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

Is this horse boarded? Or at your barn on your property? I am thinking boarded.

Have you considered the possibility that someone else is riding/using/messing with him?

That might account for this.


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

I really hope that it's not related to pushing too hard on dressage :-| I feel like I've taken it pretty slow with him; I did intro with him when I first got him but pretty quickly moved to training level and have been doing that for 2 years now. Last year I tried a 1st level test with him at a schooling show, but decided we just weren't there yet and needed to go back to working on getting more forward and bend. I feel we've improved on that (though definitely have a lot of room for improvement). My goal is to try showing 1st level again by the end of this summer. I also cross train with jumping/cross country (we've done a couple of eventing shows) and trail riding, and sometimes I'll just hop on bareback and play around, so it's definitely not day-in-day-out dressage drills.

Delete is almost certainly right that I need to work on my own confidence in handling this; I just wish I knew what aids would be effective, because he seems to blow through anything I try. Unfortunately when I take lessons with my trainer we have the arena to ourselves, so it's not something she's been able to watch and help step me through.

The biggest change in terms of management has probably been that in December one of his turnout buddies was sold & moved. As far as I can tell he was the only horse lower in the herd hierarchy than my horse, so now he's at the bottom. Whenever I see them out (which admittedly is not all that often since I'm usually at work then!) the other 4 horses tend to be hanging out in groups of two and he's off somewhere by himself. At around the same time that the other horse was sold he developed some stall aggression towards a horse that was moved into the stall behind his (who was already a food aggressive horse and I feel kind of 'rubbed off' on my horse), and because the barn was full they didn't have anywhere else to put that horse. He's since been moved and the stall aggression has calmed down a lot, but hasn't gone away completely. (It's only directed at the horses neighboring him, particularly at feeding time; never at humans)

ETA- and in terms of diet, he only gets 1 lb daily of Triple Crown 30% Supplement (which is very low NSC) and free choice hay. He also gets a few hours on pasture most days this time of year, but the pasture isn't in great shape.


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

I would present this problem to your trainer and request to have other people in the arena for your next few lessons. You're paying them, therefore they are required to help you with whatever issues you may have. An if not, time to find a new trainer.


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

I'm a bit limited in terms of working on this with my regular trainer, since I haul in. I can pretty much only go on Saturdays and I'm already busy for the next few Saturdays (one of which being the Saturday of the show!) 

I did talk to a trainer at the barn where I board today. I've taken lessons from her in the past and she has an opening on Wednesday, even though it's just a 30 minute slot. My barn is a lot bigger/busier and I'm almost guaranteed that someone else will be in the arena at that time (early evening). Hopefully that will at least get us started on the right track, and I can figure out another time slot with her next week if I need to!


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## thesilverspear (Aug 20, 2009)

Funny how their minds work. Had a friend who rode a young and admittedly spooky Irish draught, but never had problems sharing the arena until she was sharing it with someone on a whizzy little paint. The paint cantered past, not too close but moving at a fair clip, and the ID took a fright, whirled away and dumped his rider. Afterwards, it became a "thing," him spooking at oncoming arena traffic. 

Not a great ending to this story. She tried to sort him out by riding him the arena with sensible horses, having them do passes at various speeds and the like, but he had his spook, whirl-drop-a-shoulder-and-buck down to an art, and she was losing confidence and getting fed up with hitting the deck. Maybe it was her thing, tensing up whenever a horse came towards her, or maybe it was his, or most likely both. Who knows? Point is, it wasn't working. She sold him and bought a less spooky, reactive horse. Not saying this is you, OP, and hopefully you can sort it out with your horse, but it's more to illustrate how one incident can change their, and your, mindset about something.


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

thesilverspear said:


> Funny how their minds work. Had a friend who rode a young and admittedly spooky Irish draught, but never had problems sharing the arena until she was sharing it with someone on a whizzy little paint. The paint cantered past, not too close but moving at a fair clip, and the ID took a fright, whirled away and dumped his rider. Afterwards, it became a "thing," him spooking at oncoming arena traffic.
> 
> Not a great ending to this story. She tried to sort him out by riding him the arena with sensible horses, having them do passes at various speeds and the like, but he had his spook, whirl-drop-a-shoulder-and-buck down to an art, and she was losing confidence and getting fed up with hitting the deck. Maybe it was her thing, tensing up whenever a horse came towards her, or maybe it was his, or most likely both. Who knows? Point is, it wasn't working. She sold him and bought a less spooky, reactive horse. Not saying this is you, OP, and hopefully you can sort it out with your horse, but it's more to illustrate how one incident can change their, and your, mindset about something.


Fortunately, I don't think it's anywhere near that point yet. Honestly, if it did get to the point where I decided to sell him, I don't see myself getting another horse. I would have described my horse as calm, steady, beginner friendly, bombproof, etc. up until March of this year. He's still not spooky or reactive- his behavior is very deliberate. If I can't get this worked out with the help of a trainer (and I'd certainly be sending him off to a trainer if I needed to before I ever considered selling him!), then I'd be afraid that the problem is with me and that the same kind of thing would eventually happen with any other horse I got. 

At the moment, though, I'm optimistic that once I have a trainer on the ground with me to see what he's doing and give me real-time advice I can work through it.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

A friend of mine brought a young horse she had broken to his first show.
D had no help and did all the work on her own. This was a big youngster and she was only little. 
In the ring the horse behaved well but it was obvious he was not use to other horses being around him. 
In the UK judges rode all the horses presented before them. When the judge got on this horse the poor animal freaked! He was startled by the length of the judges 
Legs touching him much lower then the owners. The judge, rightly dismounted.

The horse had another class later in the day and I offered to rode the youngster around whilst D took another of her horses in for a class.

The youngster was concerned about the other horses in the warm up area but they soon left as there was a lunch break. On his own he went beautifully. D came in on her other horse and started 'bombing' him. Cantering past from behind, heading straight towards him. He would freak but soon was taking no notice. When he freaked I laughed, booted him one and slapped him with my hand on his butt. Didn't take long for him to settle so I was walking him on a loose rein whilst D worked her horse. I was walking down the long side. D was cantering on the same track, towards me. I knew she was going to leg yield away, the mare knew she was going to leg yield away but the youngster chickened out! He left sideways several feet, took off down the arena bucking, saw the rails, pricked his ears and was going to attempt to jump them. There were some people sitting at a table the other side and they jumped up and ran! 

I managed to stop laughing enough to turn him away!
Ten minutes later he was accepting the same exercise without flinching. 

In his next class he behaved like an old pro. He was pulled in first and the judge rode him beautifully. He won the class and won the show championship.

After I was talking to the judge and he told me he had been watching the antics in the warm up area whilst he had his lunch. He said that he was impressed with the way the horse had learned to accept in such a short time. (About an hour) then asked what I would have done is he had jumped the rails. I told him I would have sold the horse to a top show jumper! 

This horse behaved as he did because it was something he had never encountered before, a horse that knew better I would have been tougher on.


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## BreakableRider (Aug 14, 2013)

He's decided along the way that being near the other horses is what he wants, because you have inadvertently taught him that is the correct response. 

It sounds like you're putting quite a bit of pressure on him to try and avoid him going to the other horse. I'm sure it started innocently enough. He might have been curious about the other horse in the arena and you didn't notice it for quite some time but he did. It probably started with something simple like him just dropping his shoulder on one side of the circle, you took it as he just was dropping his shoulder. However to him it translated as "There is pressure over here... Now that i'm near this other horse, there is less pressure...Hmm." Then he tried it more, to test that theory out, which as you said went unnoticed as far as the cause goes. However, each time this happened it was further ingrained into him that being closer to another horse was the answer. 

Are you on friendly terms with any of the other boarders?

See if you can get someone to hang out in the arena with you while they ride, they don't even need to ride, they can just lead their horse in and stand there. Make sure they stand close to their horse, you don't want him trying to dart between the handler and horse.

Then, work him right next to that other horse. Lunging or riding. If you choose to lunge, make it interesting, do not just do circles one direction for minutes at a time. Do transitions at a trot and canter, chance directions, spiral your circle larger and smaller etc. Do not do more than a couple circles one direction. Then, continue to lunge him while you slowly walk away from the other horse. Change directions when you are on the side of the circle with another horse, or do an upward transition. When you are on the side away from the other horse, down a downward transition or just leave him alone. If he wants to go back tot he other horse, let him but work him there again. 

Horses are smart, he will start to seek an answer to get out of working quite so hard. He'll start to try and drift away from the other horse, let him. Then ask him to stop and face him away from the other horse while you rub on him.

You can do basically the same thing under saddle if you're confident. Mount near the other horse and put him to work, when he tries to do the opposite of what he normally does and want to move away, reward that. 

When you have removed the magnet from the other horse, then it will be safer to work on things such as being passed by other horses. Keep in mind that this isn't an overnight fix, and you'll need to be consistent.


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

I had the lesson with my trainer yesterday and it was really helpful. We had one other rider in the arena who was OK with potentially having a horse running at her (previously a polo player, so nothing new to her or her horse!) My trainer was able to help me identify the early warning signs and although he thought about acting up a couple times, we were able to avoid letting him get to the point where he actually tried anything. The key for him is to keep his rib cage bent properly on the circle so he can't drop his shoulder and run off through it. She had me wear my spurs, which I usually don't wear all that often; they were a big help as he's never been particularly responsive to my leg when asking for lateral movement or bend. So for now I'll be riding in spurs until he's over the whole 'stiffening up and running off' thing and I'll be working a lot more on getting him to bend WITHOUT them as well, since I don't want him becoming unrideable without them!

I won't have a chance to try him out in the arena again until Monday (working late tonight and going to a trail ride event all weekend) but I have a lot more confidence that I can stop him from misbehaving before it happens now. And of course, getting and maintaining appropriate bend is one of the things that we always need to work on for dressage, too, so I think the end result of this should be helpful there, too.


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## .Delete. (Jan 7, 2008)

Good! Glad you got some help
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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