First let me say that I have had horses for many years, but I am by no means an expert. This problem certainly proves that. If this seems a little long, it is because I want to be sure you understand the situation completely.
It concerns our youngest horse, a 3year old paint named “Sacred Princess” (she is the daughter of Sacred Indian). She has had no ‘formal’ training. She came to us when she was just under 1 year old, and our vet advised us to wait until she was at least 3 to begin formal riding training.
So, in the meantime, I have worked with her doing ground work. I taught her to lead, whoa, back and yield from the ground. I taught her to enter and exit a trailer. I taught her to accept being bathed on a wash rack, and I taught her to lift her feet for cleaning. I thought she was really coming along. Over time I conditioned her to allow me to put a pad and saddle on her as we as a bridle (she has allowed this for more than 1 ½ years now) and I was just about to start putting weight on the saddle, preparing her for riding training. I have also successfully cured her of biting, which she did when we first got her. I have also trained her to wear a blanket in winter and a full face mask in summer (we are in Florida and she is white, so her face is easily sunburned.) All of our horses are pastured for most of the day and brought into the barn twice a day for feeding and if the weather is very bad.
The problem started 2 weeks ago. I was washing her on the wash rack as I have done hundreds of times before (she gets bathed 1 – 3 times per week). This time, however, for some reason she crowded me against one of the poles as I was scrubbing her. My reaction was to poke her in the ribs to 1) protect myself, and 2) show her that this was unacceptable behavior. This the first time I have ever had to do this to her. She did not react as I would have expected, but rather she pulled back and snapped the cross ties. I responded by calming her down and walking her a bit, through the wash rack. I could not re-tie her as she broke the cross ties. Anyway, after a while I put her in her stall and fed everyone as usual. A few days later, it was time once again for her bath. I took her out to the wash rack as normal and tied her up. She immediately pulled back and broke the cross ties. Obviously she had learned that she could do this. Again I calmed her down but this time I did not feed her immediately afterwards, thinking that was establishing a reward for bad behavior. (As you can see I am conflicted between continuing a normal routine after a bad event, and changing the routine…not sure which is best). Anyway, the next day when I brought her into the barn and tied her outside her stall, she immediately pulled back. She was unable to break the nylon lead rope but she sure tried. I calmed her down and continued with the our normal routine.
Well this morning I went out to feed them and she refused to allow me to halter her. Period. As I approached her with her halter, she pinned her ears back and even turned to kick me. I tried for over an hour to calm her but was not successful in putting her halter on. Consequently, she went unfed this morning while the other horses ate.
When then were finished, I figured she would be ready to come in and eat, but nothing doing, she became more and more aggressive and after another hour of attempting, she still would not let me put a halter on her.
My response was to isolate her in a pasture by herself now, until I can figure out what to do next.
Obviously I am, somehow, making matters worse by trying to catch her. By the way, as frustrated as I get, I am not a ‘hitter’. I try the calm talking approach as it has always worked for me in the past. But this time I am beyond frustrated. I fear the next step in the downslide is for her to actually become violent and dangerous. This is my thinking behind isolating her.
Can anyone advise me what the next step would be. I fear the 2+ years of ground work and “training” I have done can be lost in 2 weeks, and I don’t fully understand what when wrong here.
Please tell me, what do I do now?
Thanks,
Doktour

Sexual maturity !
Up until now she was just a kid. She is starting to become mature, and as a mare, needs to re-establish where she/you are in the pecking order.
Mares due tend to get a little over the top in their reactions. When you poked her and she jumped back, I will assume that force has not been used with her before, she thought you had lost your mind and she was outa there.
I would not have been placent and calmed her, that just re-inforced that she had a right to react the way she did. It was a wrong decision she made, she had been trained better, it should have been met with. Catching her, taking her back in the wash stall and continueing as if nothing had happened. Keep a spare lead in reach just for those instances.
Then when you had her tied and she didn't break free, GOOD. Let her have her fit and when she is done, and still tied, continue on. Again as if nothing had happened.
Try to keep the 3 second rule in mind, horses remember the last 3 seconds, so when you reward her and calm her down. That really is praising for the bad behavior.
As for the catching, First check yourself for any attitude @ the gate. Walk in as you would any other day. Approach, try to halter, if successful great. If not turn around and leave. Try again when ever. Do not take feed, try and hide halter/rope, talk gently to her, try to sneak up on her, or grab quickly at her when you get close. It is a battle of wills.

I agree with Ltc4h, you need to take her right back and continue whatever it was that you are doing. A nice strong rope halter with a lead that is tied not attatched with a clip is best. It sounds like she is losing respect for you, and may need a little firmer hand. If it is behavioral than it is a matter of showing her who is boss. If she continues to get more and more aggressive then it may something medical. Has she been mean towards the other horses she is turned out with or just nasty to you? If there is a way to get her into a smaller pen or round pen that is where I would put her. Letting her be out in the pasture is really a type of reward also because she doesn't have to deal with you if she doesn't want to. I would definately work on getting her caught and brought to a smaller pen. You may if she wont let you catch her have someone else try who knows what they are doing, or even build a pen out of temp panels to run her into if you can't catch her.

Good luck.

Sounds like an attitude problem. As Ltc4h says, mares ...are mares. I've had a few that were great, but then they can always pull one on you.
I don't put up with behavioral issues here (kicking, biting, rearing, pinning ears back etc), and always go back to the round pen for correction and some ground work.
As far as tying, when I get one that learns how to break loose, that type of training is a different story here. We stop tying by the halter and use a pressure/release rig that is secured slip-knot style around the barrel, through the front legs and also through the halter. (So they think they are tied by the halter).
When they pull back, pressure is applied to the barrel/flank and of course horses being claustrophobic, they lunge forward, away from the pressure; thus the release. Works every time, but Safety precautions are required 'in my book' lol for this trick.

Good luck and don't give up.

Just a thought... I've had great success with those blocker tie rings (aka aussie tie rings). LT and P8nt have given good advice. I think using those tie rings instead of something she can break will help her get over it faster. I've seen horses get badly hurt lunging forward to get out of restraint and those rings teach them not to do that, usually in minutes. Not usually a fan of gimmicks, but those things are wonderful.

That's why we tie to a HUGE tree well away from any other object other than the ground when re-training a problem horse to tie. So that when they do eventually come forward (if they don't break what they're tied to) they don't run into sharp corners (such as in the barn) or...let-your-imagination-wander: anything!

Just a big huge chunk of a tree.

Certainly better than tying to something they can pull out of the ground or knock over! But they can hurt themselves running into a tree too.

The thing with those rings is that horses train themselves REALLY FAST not to pull back or lunge forward, period. I have yet to see one that didn't learn it in less than half an hour. Worked with a friend's stereotypical "crazy Arab" recently. (I have a soft spot for them; my first horse was an Arab and i think they're widely misunderstood.)

Anyhow, that horse would break anything she was tied with or tied to - a real danger to herself. I used one of those rings and a 15' lead rope on her halter- not even a rope halter. Tied her up then tried to freak her out. She almost pulled the whole 15' through the ring the first time, about 12' the second time... after six or eight "freak outs" she was pulling a few inches then relaxing. A few more and she didn't react at all. No problem with her since, even when tied to a solid thing like a tree. I encourage you to give those rings a try AB. If you don't like it I'll buy it back from you (can't have enough of those things - I'd put 'em everywhere if I could).

Edit/Add: Should tell you ... I'm completely taken with AQHA cutting horses for the last five or six years, and don't plan on ever owning anything else until I'm so old I need a gaited ride.

Off subject, But an even bigger adrenaline rush is to Cut or Rein on an Arab.

No kidding! Got my butt kicked this summer in a reining class by a drop-dead gorgeous Arab, and one of the horses in our little cutting group is an Arab - he does incredibly well and enjoys the heck out of it! I love watching him as much as riding him - or more.

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[quote]You are right, they can hurt themselves on just about anything you tie them to anyway.

Not sure I've ever heard of the rings or not. Is there somewhere online that I can get a look at them or see how they work? That's an interesting story of the Arabian, I'm trying to invision how this thing works. Arabs are misunderstood by some people I believe. All Arabs I have owned, worked with, or met in the past 18+ years of horses were INCREDIBLY SMART and quite intelligent. They lacked alot of simple common sense (that is my fixed-up way of describing)...

"NO, the rock isn't going to eat you.No the rock isn't going to eat you.No the rock isn't going to eat you" ...etc...

...that the Quarter horse had for me.

[quote=AQHABreeder;6638]LOL - exactly. Smart, ultra cautious, deceptively athletic... ya gotta love Arabs!

If you goodle "blocker tie ring" you can find a lot of sources of info, videos and of course the tie ring itself. Here's one source. Or you can visit Ted Blocker's ranch site... he's a fan, as one might expect!

Dressage horses are trained to be of high standard.This training is imparted by specialized tarineers normally called as Dressage trainers.Here the role of Dressage Trainer to train the horse with desired skills and both rider horses tuning so that the horse will carry a rider with full obedience and accept all commands to perform his role as well. Another factor is to improve the horse's athletic skill.

[quote=gravitysfool;6648]Hey thanks!