Working with “Hot Horses”

One of the biggest mistakes I see riders making is how they act (or react) when they are working with hot blooded horses. For some reason, the very nature of the forward going horse causes a lot of riders to do some very subconscious behaviors which greatly impact the relationship with their energetic horse.

In today’s topic, I’d like to point out one of the biggest mistakes I see riders make and what you can do if you are working with a horse like this.

I have two hot-blooded mares. My husband’s mare is an off the track TB, named Q. Q is forward going, sensitive, energetic and HIGHLY intelligent. Q was not the fastest horse on the track. In fact, she came in dead last all 9 out of 9 races. (Ok maybe second to dead last on one occasion…)

Although she is an active, hot-blooded gal, when we first got her she appeared to be almost lazy. When the owner went to lunge her, her trot looked sticky, as if she physically couldn’t move her joints past a certain level. Although medically she had a clean bill of health, she was so “stuck” in her movements, an untrained eye might have thought her to be almost lame. Her legs were scooting along the arena, her head was high in the air and her trot was atrocious to watch. The same thing happened when the woman went to ride her to demonstrate for us how “quiet” this young OTTB mare was.

Q was used to being ridden by a green rider, and it showed. Although Q herself was fresh off the track and quite green, she clearly had not made much progression in her training prior to our finding her.

Now you might be wondering, what the ONE FATAL MISTAKE WAS that this previous owner had done to cause our peppy mare, Q, to appear so… sticky? Lazy?

The biggest mistake riders make with hot horses is that they try too hard to CONTROL THEM.

When riding a hot horse, you should never try to restrict their movements or limit their capabilities out of fear of it “feeling too fast.” As riders, we MUST learn how to RIDE IT. You must learn how to ride what our horses give us and only when we know how to ride what they give us can we then begin to influence our horses to match US and OUR SPEED, and OUR RHYTHM.

But if you cannot ride THEIR comfortable trot pace, or their bigger strides, then you should learn first to ride on a lunge line until you are more in control of your balance and rhythm and influence before moving up onto a hotter horse.

What does that mean?

It means that riders have a tendency to hang on the reins or avoid using their leg on a hot-blooded horse for fear (or subconscious fear/worry/anxiousness/lack of confidence etc.) that they cannot stop the horse should it bolt or take off with them.

Q’s movements were so restricted by her rider, that her restricted movements had actually carried over into Q’s way of moving on a lunge line and in the field! That is why her movements looked so awful when we first got her. To correct this, all we did was allowed her the freedom to be able to take big swinging steps and to be able to move her shoulder freely and stretch forward with her head and neck. Within a week, Q’s movements had already greatly improved. And nowadays her dressage, with my husband riding her I might add, is like looking at a completely different horse.

So when working with a hot horse, remember that it’s not about trying to control them, it’s about DIRECTING them. Direct the energy and learn to allow your horse to be able to move correctly. It’s not their fault if you don’t know how to ride their swinging trot. It’s not their fault if you get scared riding a canter that has big strides or a rocking horse motion.

So stop blaming the horse and learn to ride it instead.