hacking on young horse

Question
I have a 5 yr old horse that is well behaved when riding at home and he was
meant to be great to hack out on his own but he isn't!
He is good when riding with other horses and even if my instructor walks on
foot next to us on the road and is fine with cars etc not spooking much at all
but when I take him out on his own he starts to jog on the spot and toss his
head which is making me so nervous. I try half halting, flexing and I am not
riding with very short reins. When he does this I have to get off as I feel that
he is going to do something worse!
What can I do to train him to be ok by himself on the road and hacking out?


Answer
Hi Stevie!

I would have to say that one of the hardest things to train 80% of horses to do is to hack out alone...calmly and politely.  Horses loathe to leave their "safe place".  Whether it is the herd, their pasture or the group of horses they are riding with....they hate to see other horses leaving them OR to have to leave alone and walk or trot away from the group.

There are very, very few horses that are naturally calm and so self-contained that they just hack out alone with no prior training.  Very, very few.

Your very young horse is not mature enough or well-trained enough to hack out alone and just forcing him to is not the correct way to solve this.  I assure you one of you is going to get hurt.  How you are riding him while he is leaving his safe place is inconsequential.  He is not even thinking about you on his back.  He is only thinking about getting back to his safe place.  That is why you are in danger.  He cares nothing for you when his flight instinct kicks in.

What to do?

Train him to see YOU as his safe place.  That you are in control as the Boss Mare and that if you say he is safe, then he is.  You must establish dominance over him from perfect ground manners to perfect arena work and then move on to thinking about hacking out.

You must make sure your foundation of trust and respect is solid with this very young and inexperienced horse before you ask him to do something as difficult as hack out alone.

Before I give you some training suggestions, I'd like a little more info.  What is his breed, who broke him and when?  How long have you owned him and what did he do before you bought him?  What is your skill level and what are your riding goals with him?

Solange