Читать книгу Finding the Missed Path. The Art of Restarting Horses онлайн

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Almost any time a horse has one or more of these kinds of problems on hills, he almost always has trouble with transitions from trot to lope. But a lower-back problem can also show up in a horse that normally backs up well but suddenly doesn’t want to back at all. He may also have a short stride in one hind leg or the other, short stride with both, not be able stop without pushing into the bit, carry his head higher than normal when being ridden, not be able to turn one way or the other very well, or he might not want to be caught, groomed, saddled, or mounted.

Cooper showed absolutely none of these signs, so again, we were fairly certain we weren’t dealing with a physical issue. But in Cooper’s case, like a good many of the ranch horses we see, we suspected that while he had a fairly good working foundation as far as his training went, he had some holes in his understanding as far as being able to do things with a true willingness.

When a horse feels he is being forced to respond to a certain task or cue over and over, instead of having a true understanding of how he should respond, it creates internal tension that can, and often does, translate into a sort of low-level pattern of constant worry. Depending on the horse, this tension can show up in any number of ways or behaviors, from an overwhelming need to fidget or not being able to stand quietly when under saddle, to rushing through tasks, sluggish or over-reactive transitions, and hypersensitivity to normally mundane things, such as ordinary noises, people moving about, or vehicles driving by.