Borrowing the Horse Personality thread

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Your horse is a ... DEAF - The Wild Card



Strong minded but insecure, this personality needs an equally strong rider to help them feel safe. Yep...yep...yep...if I give one degree of thought towards a negative outcome, guess what? I'm gonna get it!

Be loving and affectionate, but don't give up your leadership. Once you have them on your page, they are very friendly and have a strong desire to please. Finding this balance has been the most difficult part of of learning to train this horse. If you are to nice too her, she'll take the lead. If you are too strong handed she will check out mentally, and go into "survivor mode".

They can be highly competitive and will give you their all. This is the trouble at a ride. She wants to be first, even if she kills herself in the process. Once she doesn't see anymore competing horses then she will settle down and ride "nice."

Not a horse for a junior or amateur until much later in life.

I have found all that out the HARD way....


Now the question is, what to do about this type of horse?



Do

Protect them (that kind of goes without saying)
Repeat lessons often (we do a lot of repetition, she only feels safe with it)
Be their boss (this takes a lot of energy on my part as I tend to be passive)
Honor their energy (I do...accept when she's trying to kill herself)
Keep a steady training program (I feel I have done well with this)

Don’t

Overload them (this is what happens at rides and she unravels)
Skip steps in training (this has probably been done but not on purpose)
Show weakness or fear (I think Phebes would scare most mortals that first year)
Have huge expectations (But I do!)
Jump into new territory (Kind of disagree here, since exposure=desensitization)