I’m probably a bit different than a lot of folks in that it’s the rogues, renegades, spooks and knuckleheads that intrigue me. The horses other trainers won’t take on. And the ones those other trainer cause.
This fabulous Andalusian stallion that I recently started working with falls into that category. He has the highest level of training I’ve ever been on, yet he is horrible and dangerous on the ground. I only was on him for about 10 minutes the first time I was there when I was trying to establish the baseline.
There have been several trainers here in the valley that his owner has enlisted help from and it has gone badly. He tries to be a sweet guy – sometimes, but he also knows his strength and he bites – seriously bites. Took a large chunk out of his mom’s arm last week requiring 7 stitches. I’ve found that he has about a 4 second maximum time for being able to NOT bite.
If a person thinks they’re going to strong arm this horse, he’s going to prove them wrong. As of this writing, I’ve only worked with him a few times and it’s been interesting to say the least.
Oloroso has horrible and dangerous ground ‘manners’. Rather NO manners. And doesn’t back up. That of course, would be giving way, right? While working on that, meaning get back and stay out of my space you dangerous dude, he reared up at me as I lightly tapped his chest with my stick. I told him that while it was pretty, he still needed to back up. I tapped him again and he did a levade. I laughed and told him that I already assumed he could do that, but it’s not what I’m going for. I need you to back out of my space and stop threatening me.
I tell folks with ‘difficult’ horses that when this training method of changing the horse’s mind about people, being asked instead of being used and such is started, the horse usually gets worse after the first couple of weeks because they realize that they have options. So, they then begin to explore the boundaries or lack thereof that they never had before. This can be extremely dangerous and in this case it certainly is. However, there is no way to prove to a horse that you’re not going to be just like all the other trainers unless you CAN prove it by NOT doing what they do.
Here are some of the background stories his owner has imparted while I’m working with him or that I saw as they where attempting to ‘handle’ him:
M and P have owned Olo since he was 9 months old. However, he has spent most of his life in California with a trainer and is extremely accomplished in the show life of dressage, doma vaquera, tricks and reining with all the paraphernalia that goes with that. However, he was treated IMO as a tool to accomplish all this and stud chains and cross-ties, drop nose bands, spurs draw reins, etc to keep him from biting and never was he taught how to enjoy petting or quietly being near people. He was hit when he bit at the trainers. That isn’t likely to make a horse not want to bite, it’s likely to make him want to bite more and that’s exactly what happened. Well, he’s almost 13 years old now and has been acting like this his entire life. It would be ridiculous of me to think that after a few hours with me he’s going to turn over a new leaf and say, “Thanks Lauren for showing me the way.”
In the trip from his stall to the round pen (I don’t like round pens – I like square, rectangular or irregular pens) he ran over P, tried to bite, reared up, pulled back and swung sideways. Once in the pen, when he was released, he reared, spun and kicked with both hinds right at P’s head and ran off. Lovely, eh?
He was with a trainer here in the valley who put a muzzle on him and then proceeded to poke and prod him with a stick so he would have to accept it. He didn’t. It made him worse. Then, he freight-trained the person, knocked her down and dropped on her. Hmmm… sobering.
Another week down the line and I have this FB post:
Lucky I am! Olo and I had seriously different plans today. Mine was to teach him to stay – stay – stay 5-6 feet back so we can be safer. His, it seems, was to remove two of my ribs with his teeth.
He was unsuccessful. He was standing quietly, at liberty, with his ears up. I had my hand about face high indicating that he should stay. One huge 5 foot lunge with ears pinned and teeth bared, neck and head snaking under my arm and at my ribs. Knocked me backward with both his impact and my attempt to escape and I landed on my ass, but with my ribs intact. However, I did loose my favorite pullover to a hole bigger than a CD. Whewww!
Just in case you’re wondering, I ordered a muzzle the same day he chomped a hole in his mom’s arm and for some reason it’s taking forever to get here and according to the tracking won’t arrive until Thursday. But, I won’t see him again until Saturday anyway. Concern is that since he had that other muzzle experience, I don’t know if that will make things harder or what. We’ll see.
I think I’m going to have to back it down even further. I’m only asking for stay back, let me try to pet you and relax you and learn that you’ll be okay and learn to lead at an appropriate distance. But I’m also the only one getting him out of his stall and that poses an energy problem since that’s only twice a week. I’m also working on left and right and backup since he had NONE of that in his repertoire, but I can’t be safe without these options.
I was her last stop before the Alpo can. This girl is the most dangerous horse I’ve ever been around in my life. What did “they” do to her to make her so dangerous? And by dangerous, I mean: She allowed no one near her. Within range for her was anywhere she could reach or get to. She’d charge you, even lunging over the fence. Just hope you get through it and far enough away to live. She struck, bit and kicked, launched whatever cowboy got on her and then, like a bull, turned and attacked. Broke bones in several trainers bodies before coming to me at the ripe old age of three. The trainers who owned her could not get within thirty feet of a fence without her trying to attack them. They purchased her as a one-year-old at the World sale in OK and when the breeder went into the stall, she sent him flying over the stall wall and broke some parts. The trainer/owner had gotten on her, but she launched him and then like a bull, turned and attacked breaking his collar bone. She had to be removed from the stable where they trained because no one could even clean the stall. They sent her to a trainer whose business card USED to read “Problem horses a specialty.” She launched him and attacked again with the same result. he told them to come get her, she was hopeless. They turned her out in a 100 acre pasture for six months hoping she’d settle down, but the other people who had horses in the pasture couldn’t get their horses because she’d attack them. She was temporarily contained in a round pen of a mutual acquintance while they tried to figure out what to do with her. They had the vet out to draw blood to check for hormone problems. If anyone even placed a hand on her, she’d squeal and kick and squirt pee. While in the stock for the vet to draw the blood, she managed to kick him and break his arm. Blood tests were negative. The mutual acquintance said if they wanted to give her one more shot before they took her to the killers, she needed to go to Lauren’s. (I keep a low profile. They didn’t know me.) They said drug her, throw her in the trailer and get her over there. I was gone to lessons the morning she was to be delivered, so I left instructions to leave her in the round pen. Now I was not given any info on this horse, just that they wanted her to “go long and low at a lope.” I had a message on my cell that said, “Hope your pen is still up when you get home.” Hmmmmm….. I walked out to see the new arrival. As I approached the fence, this beautiful horse ambled toward me and started to put her head forward. I noticed that she had a rear hoof that was completely broken up to the hair line at the quarter line. Lots of fresh blood. Don’t know what happened getting her here. I reached up a hand to pet her face and suddenly, both hind hooves were over the 5 foot rail right at my head. “Oh sweetheart,” I said, “that’s not the way we do things here.” She then pinned her ears and lunged over the rail at me with her teeth and eyes snapping. Yikes! I got my stick and string so I could work with her in the pen and hopefully live. She didn’t have a halter on and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be close enough to put one on her anyway. I had to do some pretty good swinging to even get in the pen and keep her off me. She didn’t care. I felt bad about the broken hoof, but it was obvious that that would be a long time healing and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. She didn’t seem to care either. High, shut-down pain threshold. I sent her off while she tried to attack and then bolted off squealing and squirting pee about 4-5 feet straight out behind her. I tested several options for her to come in or quiet down, the answer was a resounding “NO”. I was running around with her so I could touch her with the string and also use it when she attacked to start our conversation. Getting her to go away was important as a precursor to her giving to pressure and not killing me. She had no inclination to do so and there were many times that I knew my life was seriously in danger. To make a long story short, two hours later, both of us were covered in sweat and pee. She was changing direction and sometimes coming in half way to me. Then, suddenly she just stopped, turned in to me and walked up to me with her head down at her knees. She stood there heaving and dripping with her tail hangling limp between her legs and pee just started pouring out of her. I petted her forehead and said, “Sweetheart, where in the world did you even have that after two hours of squirting it all over?” Whatever happened to this horse before, she decided that she was going to get the human before the human could get her. I found out later that in addition to the multitud of broken bones she left in her wake, the owner had tied her legs and thrown her and left her laying in the sun under a tarp for several hours. She also had several serious wounds that they had stitched up on her lower legs without the help of a vet. Those scars will remain, the mind scars have mostly healed. I absolutely adore this horse and she’s like a barnacle. Follows me everywhere and always is a huge help teaching other horses how to do tricks and work with sidepassing over barrels or walking in the tire bundle or tarp work. She’s always right there on her own (frequently in the way) to show the newbie how to do it.
She was ten years old and had been kept in a pen for so long her legs hardly held up and sometimes didn’t while she scrambled to bolt away. A jet black Morgan, stunningly beautiful with black eyes, flowing mane and tail and crooked hind legs and strangely shaped hind hooves. Talk about spooky – I ducked between the rails of the pen she was in and she tried to jump out the back side. The guy who ‘trained’ her, well, he thinks standing in a round pen while she frantically runs so out of control that she’s at a 45 degree angle with the footing flinging hither and thither 30 feet out. She was in a total lather and had to be blocked to stop. Her eyes were white with terror. He, meanwhile, stood there in the ‘position’ with his arm cocked leaning on his stick while she lost her mind. Then, he saddled her up and got on and kinda rode her. Meaning he stayed on at a very tense walk and trot with reins only a few inces long and couldn’t get her any where near the rail or canter. A year later, after standing in that same pen the whole time, I brought her home amd turned her out with my herd. BTW she couldn’t be caught. What a lover puss. While she will come, she still has a thought that if you have a rope it may not go well for her. I’ve only been on her a handful of times and that bareback with a halter, but she’s doing very well. Updates as I get around to them.
Would you take that one with you, too?” the owner asked me. I made a face. I was there to see about a throw away (by them) horse for my daughter (Gryffindor is on the cover of my book with her). “No.” I said. “That’s like a large Great Dane. I don’t have any use for a tiny Arab pony.” But, the little bay horse whispered, “I’ll be your best horse ever.” Believe me, I throw that up in her face every once in a while when she gets a hair up her butt and she’s not being my best horse ever. She weighs about 200 pounds more than she did then. And with only about 225 rides in her, she’s a phenomenal horse. She’s perfectly behaved galloping in the mountains bridle-less with just a string around her neck that I don’t have to use. She’s so smooth in her gaits. She jumps like a bird; completely quiet and composed and we’ve started working on piaffe. I can put someone who’s never been on a horse before on her with a halter and take them for a ride in the desert or mountains. She’s also the one I’m on laying backward reading a book and in the un-spooky horse blog post. As to the reading picture, she had never been in the backyard, I had never laid backward on her. She didn’t even have so much as a string around her neck for that photo shoot. Very smart, but that’s an Arab for ya. Tell her what you want and be clear about it and she’ll give it her best try. I’ll keep adding blog posts featuring her and stories of old as we go.
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