How to extend Hacking alone

Skib

Skib

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Dec 21, 2003
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If you are teaching a horse confidence to go solo on unfamiliar routes, would you repeat the same new route several times? So the horse accepts it as normal with no napping but may then adopt that route from habit?

Or would you alternate the new route with routes the horse is already comfortable with?

Or would you embark on many new routes, never repeating exactly - so the horse might not be worried to go new places at random and not regard any route as normal?
 
Depends on the horse I think. If they're an intrepid explorer then it doesn't really matter how you go about it. If they're a bit nappy and lacking confidence then sticking with one route for a while might build habit and expectation and cause some resistance if you then try and do something different. Horses will often ride new routes more eagerly than familiar ones :)
 
Having started out with leading him in hand and progressed to hacking, I found Ziggy was anxious and forward on new routes, which in turn made me anxious (!), so I would extend familiar routes a little at a time to begin with, adding extra loops and so on.

Now we know each other better I feel emboldened to strike off on quite long hacks (1hr+) on new territory, but this has taken more than 6 months.
 
I had to do this with Joy when I got her as she didn't hack or do roads.

I very much found with her that it was a case of reading her moods. Some days she was more settled and others a bag of energy. I always tried to take the opportunity to do as many different things as possible but at the same time is my feeling was that today wasn't the day then I'd wouldn't.

I think it really depends on defining what you want from your horse. Do you want your horse to be consident at the hacking routes you would be able to do from home? If so then repeating routes before bringing in another might be more useful. If you want to be able to go anywhere though then to my mind that means embracing the unknown and exposing the horse to a degree of anxiety so that it knows that it can be anxious but nothing with come of it and it can trust in the rider. You won't get that if you repeat routes.
 
What stage are you up to so far?

I would say alot comes down to the horse, if they're very nervous I would alternate a few familiar routes but once you've done that a few times and they seem to be making some progress then you can put in some unfamiliar ones
 
ive taken appley to new places gradually eg. just pushed her a little bit further every now and then ... she is definitely more of the intrepid explorer type though! (we have a bridlepath going THROUGH a maize field - think maize higher than the pony, galeforce wind and i was able to longrein her straight in ... didn't bat an eyelid!). i would definitely not always go the same route though, the idea is they trust you enough to go anywhere :)
 
Definitely depends on the horse.

I'm lucky in that mine doesn't give two hoots where he is, and never has since I got him, and we do a mix of familiar routes and new places. It's important to me that he'll go wherever, whenever, but I don't have access to enough routes to vary them every time we go out. Plus I enjoy going back to some places and knowing where we are and what we're likely to meet, especially if time is limited. But equally I want to go and explore new places as well and have him happy doing that, which he is.

With my old horse who would have a breakdown if I took him outside the school, I only ever hacked out on very short and familiar routes that we'd walked many, many times on foot. He found those very difficult to cope with and just wouldn't have managed anything more. But he wasn't designed to be a hack and nothing would have changed his behaviour. So it's only fair to work within your horse's comfort zone, or to push it slightly but not so far that they can't cope with what you're asking.
 
I ad to take the hack the same route going a little further each time. Then I added another route and again went a little further each time then swap between the two. That said he was and is very nappy and would rear and spin. Loads better now but he will never be a hack ploddy hack.
 
Skib said:
If you are teaching a horse confidence to go solo on unfamiliar routes, would you repeat the same new route several times?
Click to expand...
Confidence with "new" means always introducing "the new;" until "new" (i.e., change) becomes the norm. Then the horse will have confidence with every new.

Change is a scary thing (for horses and humans.) The way to build confidence with change is to practice changing.

Best regards,
Harry
 
I found when I first got Lily that it was much easier to explore new routes with company and then try them alone after - she still napped a little bit but now she knows most of the routes near the yard and seems quite happy to go exploring the odd new bit. To start with I was new to the area as well so I thought it best to take people with me so we didn't get lost - but now I know that if I let Lily pick a direction it will usually be towards home so I trust her to get us back when I am lost (which is more often than I would like as my sense of direction is rubbish!), and I think she trusts me not to let anything eat her so we have quite a good hacking relationship :D
 
Late to post here as I have been thinking about it a bit!!


If the horse is young then I don't think so much on terms of routes as getting it forward and trusting the rider.

One of our youngsters would go off anywhere but a bit like Duracell bunny then run out of energy, worry and forget how to go forwards even towards home. once he understood the answer was listening to his rider he would go anywhere he was asked.

My last horse was started when we lived in an area with hacking on endless forest/heath tracks so we never had a standard route but explored from the start and so never set up ideas of 'I want to go this way'.

However I now have a horse that I acquired set in its ways, lovely to hack out in company and resistant/nappy on its own. Unfortunately I don't have a choice of routes where I now live but in an ideal world would just set off on each ride and vary my route ...your last option.
 
We have a set of 'nursery' hacks round behind the back of our field with a sort of rabbit warren of different routes.
I've spent the last three/four months exploring these with any number of different combinations - going opposite ways round the same routes, adding loops, figures of eight past my field and creeping further and further on occasion. Any drastically new route I go on foot to check my horse is ok with as I am happier and more confident on the ground.
 
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