Conference noted::equitation

    I too have had times when my horses seem to change personality....
    This is what I found in two of the cases:
    1: Cold weather: every year my nice calm quater horse gelding becomes
    crazy for about a week. This seems to happen the first week that
    the temp stays below 20. He acts very studdy, snorts, paws, and
    is a general pain. A week or two later he's back to his normal self,
    I guess he doesn't care for winter?!?
    2: My arab gelding is high strung, but has never caused any real
    problems. He never tries to escape, he loves his field and barn.
    Three weeks ago all of a sudden he was very hard to handle, he bossed
    the other horses and was very angry. This went on for about a week,
    I came home that thursday and there was a big hole in one of my
    fences and no horse!!! Fortunately my neighbors know how to handle
    horses and captured him. I was really puzzled until I looked out
    the windo sarurday morning, and say a dog I didn't know chasing
    the horses around the field. Problem solved it was the dog. As it
    turns out one of my neighbors had just got the dog from her son,
    and wasn't tieing it up. One call to her fixed the problem.
    So as you see horse behavior can be effected by many things, but
    I would right off thing there is a problem with the horse. I would
    watch both him and his world and try to see if anything has changed
    and go from there. I hope some day to know just 10% of what goes
    on in a horse's mind!!
                            Paul Buntrock
    had captured him

    You mentioned that 2 horses that had been away were returned this
    weekend. If Mr. Punch is top horse of the field he may be upset
    for a week or so until he is sure of his ranking with the newcomers.
    I am afraid I wouldn't have let him go back out to play when he
    was misbehaving. With me he would have stayed in until he settled
    and would walk in hand quitely thereby not rewarding him for bad
    behavier.
    
                                           Good luck,
                                           Sandy
    

    re:-1
    Normally I wouldn't let him have his own way.  I was going to school
    him, when I returned from the ride, as I was going to on the sunday,
    But there is something that is really upsetting him, and we didn't
    want to confine him to his stall, due to the fact that before Keith
    owned him, he had been very badly beaten, and one thing he was afraid
    of was being confined.  We did try to leave him in a stable, but
    he would not stand still.  also we did not school him, as he was
    paying no attention to us, at all.  I have suffered the backend
    of Punch being upset by something, and he not realising his own
    strength has caused considerable damage. This of course I broke
    him out of, and he became the most docile aniamal on the yard. 
    Now we do have to be careful of what we do with him, simply because
    of the state he was in when Keith bought him.
    
    These two new horses have not been put in the smae field as him.
    They are being stables currently.
    
    This morning,  Keith went to see him.  All the horses were charging
    around.  Punch came over for a polo, and then charged off with the
    others.
    
    I am really getting worried now.
    
    helena
    

    Helena,
    
    I would not be as worried if all the horses are acting crazy. I
    go thru this every year as the weather gets nippy. My 15 year old
    Quarter horse who can usually be led just by touching her neck and
    asking her to walk, suddenly needs a headcollar and lead. If you
    want to ride you may have to lunge Punch beforehand to settle him.
    The other thing I might want to ask the yard managers is if they
    have changed to a higher energy feed resently. A change of 2% protien
    is quite noticable on my kids. Makes them all wild.
    
    Sandy
    

    
    A couple of other thoughts on this matter - I agree that the cold
    weather probably has something to do with all the horses feeling
    especially good, but I remember that several years ago my horse
    had a fit in his pasture.  For about a week he ran around constantly,
    shied at EVERYTHING and was generally upset.  It turned out that
    a DEER had "inhabited" the woods abutting the pasture.  This seemed
    to be what was upsetting him, he eventually calmed down.  My horse
    also has a tremendous fear of COWS - it could be that the scent
    of the sheep across the way has thrown all the horses off - though
    I am not quite sure why he is so upset once he is removed from the
    field.  
    
    Basically it sounds like it could be alot of things - I don't know
    if this helps, but I hope Punch is ok.
    
    RF

    My kid Jasper is also fealing really good...just the change in weather
    and the fact I haven't riden him much in the last mounth (his vacation)
    has allowed a greate amount of energy to build up. Energy he likes
    to use the minute I climb aboard. Last weekend we went for a short
    ride. He was waiting for the word go the whole time, I could feal
    it! The second I asked for the canter, all hell broke loose and he 
    started bucking and kicking and having a good old time for himself.
    He calmed down shortly after that but I could have spent the whole
    day trying to use up what was stored for next years conditoning.
    
    I think the cold weather just brings out the friskyness in them.
    No bugs + cool weather = energy+
    

	The cooler weather has affected my horse's attitude lately, he just
loves to start every canter que with 1 to 50 bucks (Mom has resorted to a
Western saddle, temporarily, to avoid unplanned dismounts).  

	In any event, are you sure there's not something out in/near the 
pasture scaring them?  What about the dead sheep - could there be a pack
of dogs (or worse) that have wandered into your area?  

Good luck - I hope you find the solution - maybe it is just the weather...

    Thank you to those of you who responded to my note, you made me
    feel so much better.
    
    But Mr Punch is back with us again.  Keith (his owner) rode him
    every day last week, and by the time I was to ride him at the week-end,
    He was better than ever before.  He actually managed to walk most
    of the 2 1/2 hours that we were out, even when I took him down a
    bridleway, we had a totally controlled canter. Even though his best
    mate champion kicked him in the chest. (what a horror) He was
    wonderful.  
    
    On sunday we gave both of the horses a treat,  We found a feild,
    and with Keith poised with camera, we set both of them off into
    a Gallop.  They really did love it, as its not that often we let
    them get that carried away.  But as for stopping them, well that
    was something too see, I think I will write a book on "how NOT to
    stop your horse".
    
    I should imagine that both Punch and Champion will enjoy a restful
    week.
    
    But there is now problems with Champion,  He has jumped a barbed
    wire fence twice,  The first time, was last Saturday when Punch
    was being funny, the second time was last Friday.  Why would he
    want to get out of his field. There are no horses on the other side
    of the fence, and there is plenty of grass left in the one he is
    in at the moment.  My friend is so worried,  he got slightly tangled
    up in the fence the second time, and has plenty of cuts, Would this
    put him off, from doing it again.
    
    Thank you for your help with Punch.
    
    regards
    
    Helena
    

    Barbed wire is nasty stuff. Before I moved out of my parents place
    I had to keep horses in barbed wire and spent at lot of time patching
    up wire cuts. As far as Champ jumping the fence it may just be he
    found out he can and will do it out of boredom. A possible solution
    would be to put a smooth electric fence wire slightly above the
    top wire and but a charger on it. A few zapps and they stay away
    from the fence completely. I have found the smooth electric, using
    the thicker 14 gauge wire to be very safe (no injuries in 6 yrs)
    and fairly cheap to install and use. I have about 2 miles of electric
    fence and I check it once every 2 weeks or so. I have found that
    even if the fence gets broken by the deer the horses won't step
    over the line where they know it should be.
        Glad to hear Mr. Punch has lost some of his punch (hee,hee)
    and you are back in the saddle again.
    
    Sandy