AlphaHorse News - January, 2007
The theme of this newsletter is going to be horse rearing: what causes this dangerous behavior and more importantly what we can do to prevent it. This is a topic that is so important that one article simply couldn't do it justice, so it will be broken down into six segments that you can read at your leisure.
You may be thinking, "Well, my horse is a wonderfully gentle companion, so why would I care about that topic?" A fair question to be sure, but I believe every horseman should care, and where's why:
Sometimes rearing is intentional, malicious and predictable, but often a horse will rear out of shock or fright. This means that even a gentle, trained horse might overreact to a situation… and you may never see it coming! The results of such an accident can be deadly, and unfortunately it doesn't have to be. Riders can train themselves to react to horse rearing such that if caught by surprise their chances of losing control are lessened drastically.
As the Boy Scouts teach: always be prepared.
So with that said, here's what we'll be learning in this issue…
In This Issue:
|The Critical Riding Errors Atop A Rearing Horse|
|Causes of Horse Rearing – Parts 1 & 2|
|How To Stop A Horse From Rearing: The Basics|
|How To Stop A Horse From Rearing While Riding|
|How To Stop A Horse From Rearing: Groundwork|
The Critical Riding Errors Atop A Rearing Horse
Every year horse owners experience serious injuries or even tragic deaths while riding their cherished equine companions. One of the more significant causes of rider injury is a rider being tossed from a rearing horse… or worse, caught underneath a horse that reared so fiercely that it flipped over on top of the rider. While sometimes injury is extremely difficult to avoid due to the spontaneous and powerful nature of many rears, all too often the problem is actually made worse by inexperienced riders panicking and inadvertently increasing the chance of injury.
Learn how most riders naturally and subconsciously react to horse rearing, why these critical errors can make the situation far worse, and more importantly how you should react.
Causes of Horse Rearing – Parts 1 & 2
Rearing is one of the most dangerous habits any horse can possess, so it's little surprise that many horse owners that work with rearing horses panic and quickly seek out assistance once they are exposed to the threatening behavior. As with many problems, too often a horse owner seeks the resolution before understanding the cause. It's a natural reaction – we all want to resolve problems as quickly as possible, but in the horse training world haste means waste.
In this two-part series we'll learn the primary causes of horse rearing, and perhaps most important of all, how to study your horse's behavior and patterns to determine why he's exhibiting this dangerous behavior. By uncovering the root causes for horse rearing, we'll be better prepared to move on to the next set of articles.
How To Stop A Horse From RearingThe image of a rearing horse has long been cherished within the art world, but as any horse owner will tell you, dealing with a real rearing horse is anything but desirable! It's a dangerous practice that can place both you and your equine companion at serious harm.
Hopefully by now you have read through the preceeding articles to gain an idea about why a horse may rear. Armed with that knowledge, it's time to review the proper corrective actions that can help eliminate this behavior. We'll break it down into the basics, corrective actions while riding and corrective actions while doing groundwork.