temper tantrum

Question
I have just got a gorgeous appaloosa horse from my friend. Absolute perfect horse except when you saddle her up then try to walk her around or even move her (with halter or with the bridle) she goes nuts, she backs up and does small rears and sometimes she evens throws herself onto the ground and rolls around. As soon as she has finished with her little spack attack she is perfect again and her spack attack only last maybe a minute. Her girth isn't too tight coz we have done it really loose just incase. she also does the same thing when we tie her up. Is it something we are doing wrong? As i said after she throws her tantrum she is the perfect little horse again. Her tantrums are pretty dangerous, apparently my friend has tacked her up in a tie up bay once and she didn't do it but i don't know if its worth the risk.She is usually tacked up in a yard coz then if she goes psycho and pulls the lead rope out of my hand she cant run away.Please help

Answer
Hi Tessa!

This is NOT a temper tantrum.  Your horse is missing some key elements in her education and YOU will have to really work on your horsemanship in order to help her.

She is NOT going nuts.  She is only doing what she thinks she needs to do to survive!!!  It is YOUR responsibility to HELP her!  You will have to show her that she CAN survive and that being in a bind is something that she can be comfortable with.  Go back to the beginning.  Treat her like a colt.  Start learning the classical ground school, get control of her feet, get control of her mind and have her understand that she can OFFER to stand still and understand that she can RELAX while being saddled.  

Do NOT EVER tie her to saddle her.  Go back and teach her how to offer to stand.  You do this by using your flag, tarp, slicker, saddle pad and tossing them up and over her back, rubbing them on her body, getting her confident with the feel of all of these things over/under/on top of/and all around her body.  Do NOT make her stand!  If you are using your flag/tarp/slicker/saddle pad and your mare moves, ALLOW it!  Just make the movement meaningful, make it WORK!  Allow her to move, but yield her hind quarters and keep yielding her hind quarters as she moves around you in about a 10 meter circle.  Maintain the proper bend and keep using your flag/tarp/slicker/pad SMOOTHLY waiting for her feet to come still.  When her feet do come still, RUB HER!  Make her feel comfortable, then go right back to tossing the pad/tarp/slicker SMOOTHLY over her back.  She should be able to accept this both standing still and walking.  When she can handle all of this activity and offer to stand on a loose lead, then and only then will you start tossing up the saddle.  Do the same thing with the saddle.  If your feel, and timing have been good, then saddling will be good as well.  

NEVER EVER leave the cinch loose.  This is a huge wreck just waiting to happen!  If your horse is not cinched up all the way and they jump around for what ever reason, the saddle could slip and end up under her belly or worse yet come partially off, she could step through the stirrups, ugh...I don't even want to think about it!  I have seen some pretty awful wrecks when people, for some strange reason think that a loose cinch is in some way kinder to the horse.  That thinking is just wrong.  Your saddle needs to fit.  The fit needs to be good enough so that the saddle would NEVER slip off your horses back even if they left bucking!!!  The best way I know of to really scare your horse and to create fear for years is having a loose cinch and allowing them to get hung up in the saddle.  Just thinking about it gives me the shakes!!!

Using your lass rope and roping up your horses belly, flanks, feet is the best way to help your horse understand how to operate in a bind and be comfortable and secure.  You will need someone experienced to help you with this.  This is NOT something you force.  This requires FEEL, TIMING, BALANCE and the understanding of what you are trying to get the horse to understand.  You want the horse to know that she can pack a rope on her belly and in her flanks and that she can SURVIVE this feel and feel good about it.  When she can do this, saddling will be so much better, because in essence, this is what you are doing with the saddle.  She just needs to MOVE and to know that she can survive with a hunk of dead cow (the saddle) strapped to her back.  It is a bind for her.  If I were you, I would be saddling her in the round pen, making sure the saddle was on to stay, and then turning her loose and letting her figure out that she can pack the saddle and live.  I would be sending her both ways of the pen and asking her to move with purpose.  When she got good and smooth, I would take the saddle off rub her, maybe brush her a bit, get her to let down and then re-saddle her again and start right from the beginning.  I might saddle and re-saddle her a dozen times until she was feeling pretty good about it.

The most important thing for you to do here Tessa is to learn the classical ground school that will make a critical impact on your horsemanship.  You can see this very clearly in the "Ground Work" DVD by Buck Brannaman.  I recommend this DVD all the time.  It is clear, concise and shows most all of the elements of the classical ground school as passed down from Tom Dorrence and Ray Hunt.  You can find it on the web.  

I know you will have more questions, feel free to ask.  If you need clarification on some of the technical elements, please let me know and we will talk about it.  Keep me posted on your progress!

Smiles!

Denise