From time to time, everyone's horse puts in a stop (or a strop) and point blank refuses to go forward at all. If you horse doesn't do it that often, then it's probably pure naughtiness and a quick smack with a whip may be all that's required to remind you Ned that you are boss (don't laugh, you ARE really, you pay the bills !)

 

 

But what if  your horse does it lots ? What's the problem ? And what is napping ?

 

Imagine that you are trotting along, quite happily down a road with your mate and for no apparent reason, your horse stops and refuses to go forward. The head goes into the air, the neck is set against you and the back gets hard. No matter what you do, you cannot get the thing to move forward and all it does is run back. 

By this time , all the other horses with you are also getting their knickers knotted, drivers are hooting at you and you and your horse are in a right old lather not to mention a highly dangerous situation. Perhaps you can't hack out alone  for fear of meeting another horse going the other way because yours wants to follow it ! 

Perhaps, when you are schooling the horse stops because you ask it to bend left or right or to trot or canter and all you actually get is the horse chucks it's head in the air and sets it's neck at you and stops dead. (Sometimes you may get an impromptu flying lesson at the same time - with NO landing  gear down -ouch !!)

 

Napping is a pain in the backside but what  causes a horse to nap ?

Horses are flight animals and use avoidance techniques rather than face problems so this is probably the key. Madam Ginger Bits naps sometimes when we go for a left turn in the school. The Boss (who I may have to re-christen GoD shortly, with a small "o" so he isn't confused with The Deity ) is of the opinion  that a horse which naps is fundamentally refusing to go to the bit and in doing so ceases to go forwards and that sounds about right to me but theory, as we always say is marvellous in theory. 

So how do we cope with napping like this. Yesterday, I had a bad time with MGB because she finds left hand turns difficult. Sometimes, she would rather canter on the spot than turn left. I often wonder if it is because when she goes unsound, it is her left hind leg which generally becomes the problem. Her left hind windgall swells more than the right and I think that at 108, she is a bit stiff in it and finds it hard to "step under". 

In the end, the solution was for me to gallop her around the outside of the school on both reins so she could loosen herself up a bit but NOT on a contact at all. This meant she had no excuse not to go forwards. By the time she had loosened up, I was able to bring her back to the contact and bend and flex her neck both ways and as a bonus, the trot got better too. The Boss says that I am making excuses.

 

I often read on the Message Board advice that I consider is unsound where napping horses are concerned which is why I decided to write  this. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion and you must read all available data and decide what's right for you and your horse but I think that  putting a stronger bit into the mouth of a horse that already naps, is a HUGE mistake. Why ? 

The horse, as we all know, has a mission in life to avoid the bit and if you start ramming Belgian Gags and the like into him, he may at first show an improvement  but gradually he will learn to avoid that as well (because it's damned uncomfortable) and then you're not even back to square one but have to move forward into serious bits like Weymouths just to establish some  control. 

It does not take a genius to work out that eventually, there is no where left to go but back to a snaffle which you should have stayed with in the first place. It's therefore not surprising that these horse nap because they cannot run away they have to fight the contact -they have no other choice.

 

I look with despair at the number of eleven year old girls with ponies whose mouths are jammed full of ironmongery just so they can stop them when the need arises. I think that this happens because the majority of eleven year old girls seem to ride with no leg contact at all and don't understand the subtleties of leg and seat aids. (At eleven years old, neither did I come to think of it !!) If you horse or pony is between seat and hand then you don't need all this gear in their mouths (in theory!!)

Why do you think it is that British Dressage actually allow the use of so few types of bits ? All these nasty, strong , restrictive bits physically discourage the horse from moving forwards at all (their primary task is supply the brakes after all ) and so the horse will never go "down and round" and achieve the outline we are all so desperate for. 

And if you can't ride a horse forward in a snaffle or a Weymouth, what state is your horse's mouth actually in ? I know there are cases for jumpers and eventers wearing serious stopping gear but these types of bits are not for the heavy-handed or for schooling and general hacking. Horses which "get strong" and "tank off" with people, need proper schooling and not stronger bits (in an ideal world of course !) 

Now I know there will be loads of you out there saying "she doesn't know what she's talking about - what a load of poo ! " and  for some forward going horses, there may be no option but to introduce serious stopping gear to control your horse across country or out hunting, but the same horse also requires serious schooling  of both horse and rider , to correct the problem - I'll give you an example of what I mean :

 

Before hunting was stopped due to Foot & Mouth, my husband and myself watched the hunt go by; one lady was mounted on a magnificent bay creature that was dancing sideways down the side of a hill. The lady's legs were stuck out so that you could see North Yorkshire on one side and East Yorkshire on t'other. 

The horse's head was flung high in the air and the rider struggled to gain any control at all. As she pulled on the reins, the head went higher and higher until the thing reared. I turned to my husband and said "If the daft cow doesn't get her legs round that thing, it'll have her on the .......................floor"  ; the dots indicate the point at which the lady and her horse parted company. I didn't like being proved right but I was in this case. My husband looked at me in amazement. (Did her think that I just ponced around for an hour and half every day and that I didn't actually know anything!?)

 

None of this riding stuff is any use if you can't or won't use your legs, put them on the horses' side and keep them there. You have nothing if you don't. You can get a horses' head down    by using your hands, by spreading them low on either side of the neck and making the horse bring it's head down, by flexing and relaxing the jaw, by vibrating the rein with your fingers, all these techniques work well BUT ONLY IF YOU CAN BACK IT UP WITH YOUR LEGS ON . 

So, ok, the horse may not like it at first and may jump a bit but once you've established rein contact with the head down, legs ON and the engine running, the horse eventually HAS to go forward and if  a tap from a schooling whip is needed to stimulate the engine a bit, then a smack is in order to make him move forward. (Being brave enough to adopt this course of action is another matter.)

Lets get back to napping. You can solve some immediate hacking out problems by going with another more experienced horse but long term, unless you can learn to control the animal yourself, this is just a damage limitation exercise. 

It takes a fair degree of bravery to sort out a horse that has become dangerous to hack out or won't hack out and if it's this bad, you should consider getting  a professional (for professional read someone who has made horses their career and is professionally qualified and makes their living from horses) to help you sort the problem out.

 

Sometimes it's a lack of ability on the part of a rider ,who, cannot keep his/her legs on sufficiently enough to make the horse move forwards and so they are actually contributing to the problem. If you shorten your reins, get the horse's head down and the horse listening to you then you must have sufficient leg on the horse to back up the rein aid and send it forward or else it will just fling it's head up and nap backwards again . 

Once again, we are back to the hoary old problem of legs and the fact that you must be prepared to use them at least 99.9% of the time ! The only way you will help your horse and yourself is to invest in good private tuition to get you through the problem if you find keeping your legs on is a problem.

 

And  don't want to read problems from people who say that "If I put my legs ON, my horse plays up". The reason for this is that if you only use your legs when you need them, your horse will jump out of it's skin in surprise as in " Oh my God, Legs, what Do they mean - HELP !!" Legs stay on all the time so that  it's not a surprise when you use them . Only change the pressure with which the legs are applied  - don't take them on and off and expect your horse to understand what you mean.

This isn't easy and one man's meat is another man's poison. You can use the BHS and Association of British Riding Schools guides to help you find the righ person for you but don't expect that a relationship between you and your teacher to form overnight. It takes a while for a teacher and pupil to understand each others fears and limitations.

 

Although The Boss has been teaching me for nigh on 27 years on and off, the dynamics of our relationship change all the time. If he tries to explain something and I don't "get it" he will think about it for the next lesson and try a different tactic and a different way of spelling it out to me. 

He remarked the other day that he was trying to teach me to "feel" what was happening with my horse's back and he thought that it had taken him around two and a half years  (Natural blonde, please speak slowly !!) to achieve this goal . 

He is happy that I am finally recognising the very subtle differences that my seat can make in half halts and collections which to the onlooker, are invisible. This is riding - riding is very subtle - horses are very sensitive to the rider's weight and hands. If you think riding is all galloping around cross country courses out of control then maybe you should stop reading this now. If you think that problems can be sorted by putting more gadgets on your horse and stronger bits in your horses mouth then please feel free to ignore me totally and log off !

 

When you are an adult rider with other responsibilities like home, husband/wife, job, children  etc. then you cannot afford to take the risks that you took when you were a child or teenage rider. That's why it's important to be able to enjoy riding and your horse but at the same time, be safe whilst doing it. That's where investing in the right tuition pays  dividends - it cuts down on the number of days lost due to injury and downright fear!

 

One of the biggest problems I see within the horse industry is that  when people have problems, they are so reluctant to pay to have that problem sorted. If you had a computer that broke down, you wouldn't expect the engineer to fix it for free and if a friend of a friend offered to fix it and  got it wrong, you'd then have to spend  even more money getting it fixed by the professional who you should have asked in the first place. No one can see the the sense in doing this and yet horse owners do it all the time - expect a free fix from a braver friend for nothing !

 

There are  many  gifted amateurs in the horse business  and some can have ridden from birth and still be clueless. The problem  with most amateur owners is not dissimilar to the problems say, within the National Health Service ; most people who keep horses are chronically  underfunded !

(I am one of them so I know this !) Despite this, if I have problems, I am resigned to paying to resolve them . Problem Pages in magazines and the Internet serve to illustrate and highlight the problems of horse ownership and form common bonds between owners , which is good, but they are never a substitute for professional advice. 

I am going to recommend some reading to you : please buy April 2001 "Horse" ( and I stress NOTYour Horse or Horse & Rider ) magazine (£2.60). There is an aritcle in it by Jo Sharples and Andrew Day called "Lighten Up" which deals with making the horse work in self carriage.

 

It has some interesting explanations about good posture and how horse's stomach and abdominal muscles contribute to the way a horse rounds itself . It made me look at all the horses on the yard and assess their muscle structures and helped me understand why some of them cannot go down and  round. 

If you let your horse get away with napping, you may well help it to develop the muscles on the underside of the neck which will make it difficult for your horse to work in an outline. It becomes a vicious circle that may well prove hard to beat. I haven't reproduced the article because I would be "done" for copyright. If you are going to read the horsey mags available then this one "HORSE", part of the Horse and Hound group - IPC Magazines, is easily the best because it's not full of daft questions from readers but has proper articles in it written in English and not some foreign horse language incomprehensible to all but Anky van G and Isabel Werths et al.

One of the reasons I enjoy writing so much is because it gives me the opportunity to have a right old moan about MGB  and the world in general but just remember , none of it is rocket science because if it was, it would be far easier - just ask NASA !

 

As I write, I am gearing up for my Private Lesson with the Boss. I have no idea as yet, as to what we are going to do but I suspect that it will be to try and sort out MGB's reluctance to turn left and her subsequent napping - two hours from now I'll finish this article and tell you what we did.

 

She is evading the contact on the left rein for some reason and I can't work out if the problem is :-

 

a) Physical - It's nearly time for the Horse Dentist to visit and I wonder if MGB's  old gnashers are playing up a bit.

b) Physical & Mental - at 108 years old MGB is entitled to an off day here and there and perhaps her legs are a bit stiff in this cold weather.

c) My Aids - I have a tendency to sit to the left and maybe this is causing her to be unbalanced. 

d) I have been cold when working recently and maybe I am not sitting in correct alignment on her back - this will bring my body weight forward over the point of balance and make her feel uncomfortable and on her forehand . This will make her back hard and stiff and turning will be impossible.

e) She is successfully continuing her mission in life to avoid the contact and there is no reason for her to do so other than she CAN!