Case Studies

Problems with Bicycles  (Carol Counter and Pincholms Limited Edition 2013)

I bred Ed and brought him up to be a sweet natured, happy pony, who hadn’t put a foot wrong in his ridden work until he took an instant dislike to bicycles.  He would jump, jog, even try to turn and run if they came towards him.  It was getting to be quite dangerous.

I have known Helen for some time and she agreed to help Ed overcome this problem.

We went off to a local country park where there are no cars and lots of space, and spent a couple of hours working on the problem.  Helen had us start by chasing her on the bike, then, when Ed was relaxed, overtaking her, then being overtaken and finally ridden towards.  She took care to make sure we only moved on when Ed and I were both relaxed.  By the end of the ride, Helen could cycle quite fast towards us, round a blind bend, without Ed being concerned.

About a week later, Ed and I had a “cyclist coming towards us” moment when we were hacking out from home.  Ed just looked at him, went “I know about these” and carried on as usual.

He does still pay attention to bikes, but I am no longer worried that he is going to put us in danger.

 

The Arab and the Killer Plastic Bags (Helen Jackson and HS Drift 2012)

I first met Drift as an unstarted 5 year old who was intended for a life in Endurance riding.  When we first met, he had been handled regularly, but not exposed to anything outside of his yard.  Consequently Drift was anxious about everything new and different, but he took this to extremes with plastic bags and other rustling things.

Once he began hacking out, this became a real issue with bags in hedgerows, or paper fluttering along the road: spinning, cantering past on the wrong side of the road, jumping out in front of cars, were all in his repertoire.  Potentially, a serious accident waiting to happen.

Drift was part of a herd that I work with regularly, so I had the opportunity to tackle this problem over several weeks.  We started with plastic bags tied to fences and gates around the yard that regularly changed position.  Whoever was leading asked him to walk past sensibly and calmly, rather than cantering or jogging sideways.  He also had treats of toast or carrots presented in a plastic bag to try to build some positive associations.

Once this was going well, I moved to in-hand work in the ménage, with plastic bags tied to the fence and to bollards, reinforcing the request to walk past calmly.  At this point I also introduced touching him with a plastic bag on a stick.  Drift was quite relaxed about the bag up in the air and on his body; it only became a problem below the knee and hock.  When we were at the point where he could walk through a stable-door width between 2 plastic bags without rushing, and stand still while the bag was rubbed against his legs, it was time to move on.

I repeated the work in the ménage from the beginning, with his rider on board.  Over a couple of sessions, we got back to the walking through a squeeze between 2 plastic bags and having his legs touched without rushing or jumping.  So then we took the bag on the stick and did some work in the local bridleways, again getting to the point of walking calmly past the bag stuck in random bushes, and continuing to walk calmly when touched with the bag.

I knew that Drift was making real progress when his owner was riding down a drive and had to go past a bag that the wind was blowing around.  He had a good hard look at it, then just kept on walking.   The problem wasn’t fully resolved, but the response was reduced to a manageable level.

Drift moved on to Dark Endurance in 2013 and continues to do really well in his career.