My show horse won’t walk?
I recently bought an amazing 10 year old Half-Arab mare last month. This mare has 14 Regional titles under her belt and 123 Achievement points, (let’s just say she knows her stuff.) However, I am having one problem–getting her to flat walk. Now, when I bought her she hadn’t been ridden in about 10 months, so I am trying to condition her and get her back in the swing of things. But, this horse only jiggs, and refuses to flat walk. She is a Hunter Pleasure horse, but yet she thinks she’s a park horse at the walk. As of now, every time she starts to jigg, I turn her in a small circle off the rail, then bring her back onto the rail. Sometimes this works for about a stride or 2, then it’s right back to jigging. Any advice????!!!!
Get a new one? Get a new horse? Are you crazy!? This mare is my baby, I’m not going to “get a new one.”
Everyone else…thanks for the great responses–they were very helpful.
I have a TB mare that does the same thing (she was a 3’6″ eventer before I got her and she hadn’t been ridden for about 3 years). When she starts to jig, just circle, sit back, and talk to her (I sat easy over and over). after she has walked a couple of circles, straighten her out. She will probably revert to the jigging, as soon as she does, go back to circling. just do this over and over, after she has walked along the rail, go ahead and move on. one thing that you need to watch with Arabians is that they are extremely intelligent and are easily bored, so don’t overdo the walking and reward her by allowing her to do other “interesting” stuff. After you are done riding, you should drop your stirrups and reins and walk her a couple times around the ring, this encourages her to drop her head and relax.
Whatever you do, DO NOT gallop her like the above poster said, I have tried this with another Morgan mare of mine and it made her worse, Arabians and Morgans both have unlimited energy and will just get more and more wound up and the next time you come out to ride she will be impossible to deal with.
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