Weneka - TB Mare
My friends horse results came back Yesterday. 4 y.o. thoroughbred mare, P2/P2, P3/P3, Px/Px
I get it’s really bad, but still, has anyone had similar results? Have you tried any management/feeding changes? The mare is currently 12/12, has access to grass but not very rich grazing. Otherwise, she’s mostly on hay only, as she’s not doing anything-we deemed her too dangerous to ride few months ago and since then, we’ve been looking for cause of her apparent issues:( Thanks for any insight.
currently it looks like her previous owner will be taking her back, I’m not sure about all the possibilities. When we worked her on lunge (on cavesson), she had all sorts of issues more often than not(bunny hopping, bucking, wildly running around etc.)
there has been lunging incident when she attacked my friend in one of the bad days. She’s not easily scared off and neither I’m, but we’ve agreed this is only pointlessly dangerous.
According to the contract, she can and the prew. owner has agreed, but we’re still looking for informations to give her. She’s otherwise a very sweet horse and I’d like to know if it’s possible to at least help her to be painless as long as she can be.
Mom and siblings (six or so) are all known as “difficult”, even if some were quite successful racing horses. There’s one full sister who has a foal under her this year:((
Previous owner was really fair and behaved accordingly to the contract. We tried together to find her good new home, in the end the owners of her mother took her-wanted her even if we fully informed them. We unfortunately could not do more for her, but so far it looks that without work, she is doing ok.
There are many, looking back. From what we’ve heard, she has been difficult since birth, did not want to be touched, very shy and flighty foal. As a yearling, almost impossible to be broken in, nervous, scared of anything, very explosive, didn’t want to be saddled or lunged etc. Than after short and unsuccessful racing career (her jockey refused to ride her anymore) she was offered for sale and we bought her as three years old. Nervous and reactive while trying her, but we’ve thought it’s because the racing training didn’t sit with her well and considered her problems mostly psychical, with possibility of back pain from very unsuitable saddle they used on her. We’ve made all the x-rays. including the spine, and it came out clear. But when we brought her home, her issues with being ridden was only getting worse. She became downright dangerous, wouldn’t even walk while ridden, either wanted to run away or bucking like rodeo bull. She was stiff with hard muscles, never loosened her jaw, even held her breath while ridden – I’ve never seen anything similar in any other horse. We didn’t want to hurt her, she clearly did not want the rider on her back, so we’ve reintroduced her to rider using positive reinforcement. My friend spent months only getting on and off, getting sure she is all right with being ridden, than riding her in walk just around the the mounting block. It got a lot better, even if there still were days when she was explosive and very stiff and reactive from the moment she came home from the paddock. On these days, my friend did never ride her, sometimes only lunged her and even than, the mare usually started galloping around, bucking wildly, holding her breath, bunny hopping etc., but in time, it occurred less often. Than we tried to ask her for more – like 5-10 minutes of walk, few steps of trot – she suddenly got worse again, uncomfortable with any form of work, at which point we gave up trying to work with her, because we felt certain that this behaviour has to come from pain.