help in reining

Question
Hello!  I have a sweet three year old 1/2 thoroughbred, 1/2 draft filly without a mean bone in her body.  I have had her under saddle for a year now, but not extensively.  I have small children and another on the way.  Her training is sporadic at best considering the severe winters in Alaska where we live.  Considering all that, the horse is an angel and if you didn't know better, her temperment would tell of a much older and mature horse.  She is extremely calm  and gentle.  Our two main problems: Heidi is at the toddler/teenage age where she has figured out how to use her 1300 lbs. to her benefit and againest me.  When she is asked to do something that she is not interested in, she uses her size as a tool.  How best do I correct this or at least turn the odds to my favor? Second question: is there any simple ground training lessons that I can use to help Heidi with her reining, or rather, lack of reining skills?  One day she does fine with the basics of turning, stopping, and moving forward.  The next day she acts as if it's her first time under hand.  She has never offered to pitch a fit, buck, or rear.  She just tosses her head and refuses to move.  Any suggestions?? Thank you so much in advance for any advice you may have. Stori

Answer
Hi Stori-

Your questions are fairly common for a young horse.  Unfortunately there are several different answers.  I will tell you what I would do.
Both problems require some good ground work.  At her age and level of training, ground work is still just as important as riding.  Especially since ground work is where you can really stress boundaries and manners.  I'm sure you had to do some ground work on her before you got her riding - I would recomend reviewing some of those lessons with her.  If she is getting kind of pushy, you may find that working her more regularly will help and you may find that a different halter may help.  If you are using a nylon halter, try using a rope halter.  I use a completely different kind of halter that works well on the mustangs I train.  You can see what it is like on my web site: www.kickingbearmustangs.com.  The idea behind those halters is to increase the pressure on her face (humanely)which can make her more responsive and cooperative.  You can, because she is a bigger breed, try using a stud chain, but I really hate those and to be honest, I think they usually make the situation worse.  Unfortunately she is, as you said, basically like a teenager.  The best thing for her is persistance, and constant work.  And depending on how pushy she gets, you may need to periodically give her a really hard days work to "hand her her ***."  So be patient and keep working with her whenever possible.  Like I said the behavior is fairly common for her age and level of training.
As for the reining issue.  I would work on turning on the ground.  Put the bridle on her and really focus on getting her to move her hind end.  Turning is really important with a young horse because it is one of the easiest cues for them to understand.  When I have a horse that doesn't understand that a squeeze with my legs means to move forward (if they would just read the instructions!) I can pull them into a turn to get their hind end moving and then turn them in whatever direction I want them to go.  Eventually they catch on and don't need me to do that any more.  But again, if you aren't working with the horse regularly, this is a pretty normal problem at that age and level of training.

The best answer I can give you is to focus on the ground work just as much as the saddle work.  With a young, green horse I split the daily training up into two sections.  Ground work and saddle work.(not necessarily in that order)  One helps to reinforce the lessons from the other. When you first break the horse to ride it is very easy to forget about ground work, but it is very important to continue it to some degree just to reinforce the horse's training.

Best of luck, and let me know if that doesn't help.
Michael Hockemeyer
Kicking Bear Mustangs