When we asked for what people wanted to have articles written about, the most requested was about herd bound horses. I have heard this issue come up in conversation many times over the years. Some people can’t get out of their yard unless there is another horse along. Some can’t get anywhere unless a certain horse comes along. Others can get out of the yard, but the horse whinnies the whole time they are away.
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s usual the best question is: “ Why can’t I ride my horse away from the herd?” The answer is… the horse is more comfor table, trusting, secure, interested, and feels safer with the herd than with the rider. We need to switch this around so that the horse feels these things with us instead. A herd bound horse has a lot of anxiet y and usually carries more issues than just being herd bound. Some of the other issues that might show up are hard to load, spook y on the trail (if you can get on the trail), argues about going for ward, kick s out or rears, trouble being tied unless other horses are near, ner vous if the wind blows, and, hard to handle in general when they are away from the herd. This occurs because the horse does not view us as the leader and someone that they feel is captain of the ship. Their leader is in the f ield back at the ranch. The quickest way I have seen or ever used to be able to get on any horse and ride of f into the sunset by yourself is to earn their trust, conf idence and respect. The better you get at these skills the faster you will be riding any where you want on any horse calmly without the whinnying. Not only does your horse forget about being herd bound, ever y thing improves. When the horse sees you as a leader they go when and where you want willingly, enjoying the outing as much as you do. It doesn’t take long with the right skills to become the leader that the horse is willing to follow and trust. It only takes two or three sessions with an unstar ted horse to get it to where it will go out on a trail and ride willingly away from the herd. In the meantime, there are some other things you can do that will help. Slowly separate the herd bound horse from the f ield and horses it is used to living with. Splitting one group into two groups or introducing one new horse to another and have them learn to live with a horse or horses they don’t know. Separating a horse out of the herd and area it has been living in and moving it to another area or pen without any of its pasture mates it ver y stressful for the horse. They can get so worked up that if they are in a pen that they think they can 6 • August 2019
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jump out of they may tr y. They can pace back and for th in the pen hardly eating or drinking losing weight daily. The more gradual that we can make the transition, the safer and less chance that injuries will occur. Moving the horse from the herd helps somewhat with the herd bound issue, however, it doesn’t get the horse to see the owner/rider as the leader. The worst example of herd bound horses I have witnessed was a bunch of Warmblood horses I was star ting in the US that were destined for a jumping career. Many were getting to be 6, 7, even 8 years of age. The older they get the worse they get, because ever y year that goes by the worries they have become more real and ingrained in their minds. The horses were ver y sheltered from ever yday things that go on around a ranch. The more we protect and shelter horses, the more issues you can expect them to have. If a tree moved in the wind they would run sideways for a hundred yards tr ying to get back to their pens. No horse could be tied, and horses had to be moved from the area if there was going to be a noise in the barn. This kind of thinking causes horses to get worse instead of better. When a horse is exposed to something new they may get agitated, anxious, worried. Open their worlds to the possible things that may go on (don’t avoid) and it will go a long way to some more positive behaviours in our horses. I will mention again that your horse needs to see you as a leader and that does not happen only by exposing them to things. We need to know how to earn their respect and build their conf idence in a way that horses respond to and understand. The higher the level in these areas the less troubles we will have with our horses. Stage 1 of the Master Horsemanship DVD series is a good place to star t. There are 7 patterns on the ground that transfer into the saddle. There are 7 elements in the saddle that are directly tied to the 7 patterns on the ground, so one is always encouraging and building the other. There is no confusion from the horse’s point of view because we are not changing the messages when we get on or of f.