Horse won’t go forward unless following someone lol

[Slavetolove]

We are loaning an absolutely gorgeous mare cob who is 10 years old. She’s really bomb proof and nothing fazes her at all. I don’t think she’s done much in terms of trotting/cantering or any pole work. She’s been a little girls horse.

the thing is she just won’t move unless someone is walking next to her lol, my husband has to walk at the side and she will happily follow him like a puppy, if he stops she stops. My daughter has tried using leg, voice and a tap of the whip.

we are going to start lunging her on Saturday so do you think that will help her listen to my daughter more? It’s early days but we are so in love with her and can’t wait to watch her and my daughters confidence grow with each other.

her owner told us she doesn’t do fast, and will happily just plod about but I reckon there is something in her lol

I bet she’s been used to being led- get an instructor out to help you educate her to the leg. I would start to long rein her and get her used to voice aids so she gets used to not having someone leading her

get a good instructor and don’t start trying to fix without, she may need training to the aids basically from scratch if she’s used to being led round / not doing a lot

It can be really hard to move a lead rein to a first ridden. You need an strong rider to pop on if dc is a novice and a instructor to follow that up with dc. At least it just won't go. We had the issue where lacking a ground person DD's pony would just launch her over her head 😆.

Thank you! Will have a look for someone to help lol.

owner can’t ride anymore due to health problems so she hasn’t been ridden in a while. She’s such a good girl.

daughter has been riding for 2 years but used to riding an ex race horse who is super fast. She’s absolutely loving the relaxed hacks with her though. My husband doesn’t think she needs to learn to be first ridden but I think it would be nice for them both.

Definitely lunge and long rein. I bet she's never done the ground work. Had the little girl plonked on bareback, then a saddle and then just led around.

I'd still let dd ride as she is doing, but introduce lunging and long reining, with an instructor if you aren't confident.

Thank you,

iv seen videos of her lunging in the past and she looks fab but probably does need reintroducing.

Lunging on its own won't fix the problem, you need someone experienced to help you effectively restart her and its going to need careful and strict riding in the future to get her to go off the leg when she's spent so long effectively doing the opposite. It sounds as though she isn't getting the concept leg on = go and you need to be careful with then telling her off or using the stick or a lunge whip to chase her forward as you risk just confusing and agitating her more. Personally I would start with ground work, I prefer long reins to lunge as don't like to keep them going round and round in little circles for more than 20 mins particularly if they are unschooled and unbalanced whereas even a wobbly baby can go for a good length of time on the long line. But do get an instructor to show you how to use the long lines properly, or indeed the lunge if you do want to use that, it's not as simple as clip the line to their heads and whizz them around you!

I'd get a 'walk on', 'trot on' and 'woah' voice command really well established from the ground, you can use someone at the head if that helps her at first but then get them to gradually retreat so she learns the command comes from behind her head not beside it! Lots of praise when she does it well even if there's more forward than you initially asked for. Then once this is solid you can start to put a rider up and start to combine the leg aid with the voice command she already knows and then gradually reduce the need for voice aids to back-up only - you need to teach your DD not to nag with her legs though - it needs to be one clear quiet aid, backed up with the voice and a firmer aid if necessary - if she's using her legs when she doesn't mean 'speed up' the mare won't ever learn what leg on actually means! Do also check with the owner also before you do any extensive reschooling that she's happy with this, I used to have a saint of a small child's lead rein pony who absolutely ignored 90% of whatever the rider did and would happily have followed his leader into a volcano probably, whilst it would have theoretically been possible to teach him to respond to correct ridden aids, that wasn't what I wanted him for and would have been actually quite annoyed if anyone ruined him as a lead rein pony by making him sharp off the aids and forward off the leg lol!

I agree with what maxelly says. If she doesn’t understand that leg = go then pony club kicking and using a stick isn’t going to help. She’s not being lazy or obstinate, she doesn’t understand.
On a similar vein I see a lot of people who complain their horse is strong when they simply haven’t been educated to the bit. It’s not the same thing

Do you have anyone who is used to green horses who can help? Lunging I doubt will really help as unless you really know what your doing it’s not that helpful and can mean they just run around in circles with you chasing the, long lining with two reins can be much more beneficial… (although I must admit after two days in due to a flooded field last winter I did just Chuck my mare on a lunge to let off steam..) but long lining does require a degree of knowledge and Experience and therefore supervision if you don’t have that knowledge or expertise

Her owner is going to help us lunge her, obviously she’s had her for 7 years and had a horse for 15 before her.

tbh I don’t mind if she doesn’t become a first ridden but I think it would do her confidence good. Shes so beautiful and I think she could go far