Colt Refuses to be Caught

Question

Spartan   Hi,

I have a 2 year old colt named Spartan that I recently acquired. His owner barely has time for him and is trying to sell him because she owes back board, but due to her busy schedule cannot work with him regularly and admitted that she had only been coming out once a month, if she was lucky. She has in turn, asked me to work with him until he finds a new home.

Spartan's History
Spartan was originally won in a raffle and then sold to my friend. She worked with him daily, and had instilled some necessary ground manners in him. When she relocated to Montana, she temporarily had to leave Spartan in Colorado. During that time, we think he might have been hit with a lead rope or halter by someone trying to work with him. When the friend retrieved him, she said she had to spend a lot of time working with him again to get him to be willing to be caught. Once she got him to Montana, her schedule became hectic and she admitted that she was coming out to see him once a month.

Spartan is now very hard to catch. He has no problem being loved on and petted and rubbed down. He seems very comfortable with it; however, if you go into the paddock to catch him, he becomes very evasive. I've been schooling horses on a professional level for about 6 years, but this is the first colt I've come across with this issue. He doesn't strike out or pin his ears or anything nasty. He just backs up. Everytime I touched him, he would back up a few steps. When I backed off, he would walk to me...and the cycle begins again. Because I didn't know how severe his reaction would be, I put the rope on his back and he backed up and ran off. I spent another 20 minutes rebuilding that trust back. He was willingly following me around the paddock by the time I left.

Because this horse is on the market, we want to be sure that he can be caught by a prospective buyer. I've been bouncing around 2 training options to correct this issue.

#1: Take my time and go slow and gradually earn his trust.

#2: Take a lariat and rope him and work him through that fear by not allowing him to have a chance to run off....thereby forcing him to deal with the situation vs running from it.

My question is this:

Which of the two avenues would work better in order to get him through this? Time is not our friend right now because someone could come look at him any day and ideally, he should be at least catchable. At the same time, I don't want to traumatize him more. Additionally, if you have any other ideas that I haven't thought of on how to tackle this issue, please tell me. I want him safe and reliable, not nervous and fractious.

Please note: Spartan is gelded and he is kept in a paddock with 4-6 other young geldings.

Answer
Hi Brittney,
You seem to be one the right course. Your first solution is preferred...take your time. However, time is limited as the horse could be gone soon. So, solution number two is always there. Just make sure the rope you use to loop your horse is a "horse-safe" rope. I prefer using a triple soft rope when working with a green horse. Good luck and stay safe.