Get Your Hard To Catch Horse To Catch You

What happens before the thing that happens? Your hard to catch horse has run off from you, again, but what happened before that? Being hard to catch, like any other behavioral problem is the symptom, not the cause. When you learn how to read your horse, you will be able to fix the cause of your horse being hard to catch, and thus be able to catch your horse.

Horses, like dogs, give us calming signals to communicate that they are stressed, and want us to back off. While it goes against what most people have been taught, releasing pressure when your horse begins to show stress can actually speed up the process of things such as desensitizing and catching your horse. This is done by building a degree of trust. A horse is more willing to try new things when you have paid attention to their comfort level. Before continuing this article, I highly suggest reading this blog article: https://annablakeblog.com/2014/04/18/calming-signals-are-you-listening/

Now that you are aware of calming signals, you can begin to use them. Whether a horse is hard to catch because he anticipates work, or he is frightened, both types will give calming signals before running off. Your horse may look away and think about leaving 10 feet away from you, or 100 but the approach is the same.

Begin walking toward your horse very casually, and when you notice your horse look away, shift his weight away from you, or any other calming signal, back up a few steps. Wait there, even turn side on to your horse and focus on relaxing your breathing. This gives your horse a moment to relax so you can begin advancing toward your horse again.

At some point, you may mess up your timing and your horse may run off. Stay calm and hope you are in comfortable shoes. This is where you have to decide if your horse is fearful or trying to run to avoid getting worked. For the fearful horse, casually follow until you find an opportunity, a corner perhaps, to get in front of your horses eye and back up. You want to keep your energy low and catch his eye so he will stop and face you so you can begin again. Pushing a frightened horse will just intensify his fear. If your horse is doing this as a bad habit, send him forward. Use your leadrope to twirl it, a flag to shop him forward etc. you want the speed he goes at to be your choice. Don't exhaust yourself by chasing him, but keep pressure on him. When you see him try to volunteer to slow down and stop, let him. Relax yourself and stand still, giving him the opportunity to try the right thing. When he stands relaxed begin approaching again.

When you get up to your horse, reach your hand out toward him. Slowly move your hand about until your horse looks at you, then bring your hand down and step back. If your horse gives a calming signal, step back as well. This will continue to build a line of communication. Once you horse stands calmly to be rubbed, rub him with your leadrope on the shoulder and neck before retreating. Build up to being able to slide the lead rope over the other side of your horses neck. From there you can keep a hold of your horse while you halter him.