Franklin Levinson's
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Horse Jumps out of stall and round pen
Hi Franklin,
I am so happy that I found your site. I have a coming two paint stud horse (soon to be gelding) that has a jumping problem. He first started jumped out of our round pen (3 times) knocking boards to the ground. He has jumped out of his stall and received a healthy cut that had to be stitched up. My trainer told me that he had separation issues. As time went on, he seem to grow out of his struts. This past month we breed him to a mare, so that I might get a foal before I gelded him. While, he was alone in a very large turnout with ten to twelve foot fences, he jumps, and hooked his rear hoofs in the fence and landed on the other side pulling the fence down with him. Do you have any suggestions on how to get him to stop jumping over fences. Everyone is telling me to get rid of him, but he is MINE and I have had him since he was a baby. He is very lucky not to have been badly injured this past weekend. A couple of cuts and scraps is all that he walked away with. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks so much...
Karen,
Houston Texas
Hi Karen,
Once the horse is gelded, that should make a difference in his jumping proclivity. The behavior is an indication of simple immaturity and insecurity. Generally, horses that do this are prompted too initially by being pushed to hard in the round pen or separated inappropriately (too abruptly and too soon). This was begun by the horse somehow being handled incorrectly (either during weaning, initial training, herd handling, etc.). I have had some very good successes in rehabilitating this sort of behavior by resuming training with a one-step-at-a-time approach. Do not ask for too much too fast. I make certain the animal bonds with me totally and do not focus as much on training specifics first, preferring to have the developing of trust and confidence with humans be top priority. Also, not having the round pen be just for training, but a place to relax and even eat sometimes, has helped. I have set up situations where other horses were kept quite near a round pen I was keeping a horse I was training in. It seems your horse has now habituated to this behavior. That's a drag. You will need to take some serious and thoughtful steps to rehabilitate the horse. Again, gelding him should help. Breeding him may give you another nice horse, but probably makes the stated problem more difficult to resolve. Breeding him was a double edged sword.
Anyway, good luck and let me know how it all goes......
Sincerely, Franklin