horse got used to one groom and one rider

Question

one man horse   i faced a trouble with a horse called PROOF. a 3 year old bay thoroughbred racing gelding who won ALCOCK ARABIAN STAKES, a GRADE III race in india.

this horse never lets any one to approach or touch him except its groom and the jockey. even if the stable head or the trainer comes to touch him, he bites it seems. you dont believe ma'am, that horse has the same groom right from it entered that trainer's stable as a 2 year old baby. and only that jockey ANIL exercises this horse in the morning. this horse allows other riders only to trot. if it enters the main exercising track which is near 10 furlongs, it would coolly trot along with the rider. but once the horse and rider reach 8 furlongs, the horse either rears, bucks, bolts or balks or does anything, drops the rider and calmly returns to the 10 furlongs. for a minute, i was laughing but next minute i felt pity for other riders. i named this horse called as ONE MAN HORSE.

if i enter the stall and call PROOF, he will charge me to bite. what is the problem with this horse? how to make friendship with such kind of horses? if i show my fingers to come and sniff, he would surely eat off my fingers. please tell me a good solution for this behaviour ma'am !!!

Answer
Hello Rohit,

Again, these answers may be limited as I cannot observe the behavior of this horse and his handlers first hand.

Almost all of any horse's current problem behaviors can be traced back to incorrect handling by humans at some point in his past life. It can be cruel and abusive handling, or some problems can come from people who are fearful of the horse and cause the horse to be too
bold in his behavior toward people. This needs to be handled tactfully, but it must be understood by the horse that he is not allowed to strike, bite, or kick.

This horse may well have had serious problems when these people got this horse, and they are skillful enough to work with him, or THEIR training coud have been incorrect in the result that they are the only ones who can handle the problems that they created.

In any case I suggest that you just observe this horse and the way he is handled, and not get direcly involved unless you are asked to. You learn by watching and analysing and watching how different horsemen treat their horses. Then you will find out YOUR methods that will work.

Your methods will be intelligent, based on each individual horse, and even your energy will change with each horse.

I again suggest that you purchase a book by Linda Tellington Jones on her methods of dealing with difficult horses.She also has DVDS.

Mitzi Summers
www.MitziSummers.com