[haflingerfriends] Re: broken elbow - a valuable lesson

There are things about your walk that I would have done differently. The rope halter was very wise, but giving her some extra rope was not, especially on the way home! All horses want to hurry going home1 If you had her rope close to her head and you know from practice that she respects and will not pull on her halter, you would have been by her shoulder when she speeded up instead of behind her leg! At the first hint of pulling, I would have given her a hard yank to remind her who was leading! Then stopped, turned her around in a tight circle, then walked on. You need not nor should not be pulling all the time, but you should be ready to unbalance her when needed, to show your leadership.
Sorry you got kicked, it is a hard lesson learned the hard way! Lucky it was not in the face!
Unless your husband is an experienced horseman you would do best to take your walks with him without your horse! That way your complete attention would be on her, as she is new to you, and needs to learn that you are the boss mare!
Geri in Oregon, whose husband wishes he could still take walks. Poor man has a bad leg, walks with a cane. He is almost 80, I am 74.
I had a good day today, have not been riding because of the weather, or at least that is my excuse, but today rode my mare in the arena. Last year I rode 13 times in February, it will be hard to catch up on that!.

--- In haflingerfriends@yahoogroups.com, "susanna_thorne" <susanna_thorne@...> wrote:
>
> i'll be brief because typing left handed is new to me. i took my new to me haflinger mare for a walk in the woods. we were on a well packed snow mobile trail. it was the first day of moderate weather, maine has seen all winter.
>
> i asked my husband to walk with me because i didn't know how the mare would act.
>
> so with a rope halter and lead we walked. my mare was doing very well. we were both enjoying the sun shine and crisp temperatures. we were on th way home i gave her some slack with the lead, she picked up speed and swung her butt around and planted her hoof smack on my right elbow. it's broken!
>
> the tragedy is that i'm 8 weeks away from graduating from nursing school. we've been working on ground manners like not pushing, crowding but obviously we were not ready to be out of the paddock.
>
> and more obvious is that my mare does not recognize me as the leader.
> so, it's back to establishing who's boss in a firm, consistent manner. i did some research and this mare has a well established history of being pushy. any thoughts on how to correct the butt swing and how to set the tone that crowding, pushing and brat behavoir is not tolerated. gots to go i'm studying for a cardiac exam
>

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