schooling troubles

[sprite]

My new horse will circle perfectly on one rein with minimal use of the leg and a very light contact. However on the other rein he becomes very evasive and will nearly always duck out of the circle and try to go back the way we've come. If i ride with stronger contact he just pulls away more strongly and he runs away from firmer use of the leg. On the occaissions we get round the full circle he breaks into trot nearly every time.
I also have trouble bringing him back from trot to walk.
He's just passed a full vetting and has a new saddle, so i don't think the problem is anything to do with physical discomfort.
Any ideas anyone?

 

[Tootsie4U]

Sounds like one sidedness and balance issues.

 

[Kelly Lee]

My mare was quite one sided at one point as well. You may want to do some lungeing with the horse to help it with balance. My mare is a tb - so naturally she is better to the left than the right. I just am sure to work both sides evenly - and I found that doing groundwork with her really helped.

Good Luck! I know it can be frustrating.

 

[jUmPingIsLifE]

try doing a lot of lounging and work at the walk going your horses bad way. do things like haunches in, haunches out, and leg yeilding. and a lot of walk to hault transitions. then start doing these exersizes at the trot.

 

[helen03]

i had this problem and thought my horse was just being rude, vet came out and turned out his wolf tooth had come through on the bit line!Always worth getting checked

 

[Tootsie4U]

Be careful doing stressful things like extensions and leg yeilding. They could just unbalance the horse more - especially while ridden. The horse would just rush into the exercise, thus snowballing the problem. An unbalanced horse is a worried horse. A worried horse is not a relaxed horse. A stiff horse will end up hating its work.

 

[FreedomStar]

It sounds as if your horse is very stiff on one side. As horses can become one sided, it is a common thing for horses to be better in one direction than the other. Try doing some carrot stretches, where you take a bit of grain or a treat, and touch it to the horses side to get them to stretch towards the treat. It might take a while for the horse to catch on, but it really helps.

 

[sprite]

Thanks for replies- I'm aware that horses generally have a better rein, but this seems to be more than that, more of a fierce determination not to go that way. I'm reluctant to put it down to pure disobedience because he is otherwise extremely eager to please.
When he was vetted the only comment the vet made was that he has wolf teeth and i may want to have them removed at some stage. Last week a different vet did his flu jab. He had a student with him who he asked to age my horse, so they both had a look at his teeth. I asked about the wolf teeth and the vet said they are very small and shouldn't cause a problem.
I'm still having trouble with trot to walk transitions. Had a short canter today (kind of by accident as i want to get things right at walk and trot first!) and he came back to trot no problem, but still wouldn't walk.
Today he pretty much refused to circle right at all, in the end i got off and led him round a few times as i was starting to despair. I find it hard to believe that since he is obviously very well schooled in some respects he could have been allowed to be onesided to this degree.
HELP!