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QH filly
I have a 2007 QH filly, she just became a yearling (officially) today but will be a true yearling in a few days. She has always been high maintenance, meaning HOT. She is halter bred and showing in halter classes is what I purchased her for. She was shown once in September, it went OK with a little help from a calming agent. After that show she came home and has been turned out daily and stalled at night along with my gelding. They go out in the same area but one or the other is inside the round pen so the gelding can't beat her up. In the barn they are across the aisle from each other. Things were fine with this arrangement until recently. Now she paces the pasture gate, round pen or stall all the time. At first I thought she was just too attached to the gelding so I have been turning one out and keeping the other in, rotating days. The filly goes nuts wether she can see him or not and if she's in or out, she paces and screams all day, The weird part is when I bring the gelding in (stalled across the aisle) she still paces and works herself into a sweat? She settles down when tied to the wall but freaks out again as soon as I turn her loose.
HELP! Any ideas are welcome as she would be a top notch halter horse if I could lick this crazy behavior.
Deb
Hi Deb,
Here is what I suggest: First off your filly is not neurotic, just very young with lots more energy than you may have thought possible. I have a 2007 Arabian, highly bred, filly in my training, that sounds a lot like yours. Some of this behavior can be helped through several (3, 4 or 5 even) short, daily training sessions. Training sessions should be relatively short (15 minutes or so) and limited to the basics of handling, moving off of pressure, etc. You will not eliminate all the unwanted behavior with the extra handliing. But, if you are consistent, it should get better. Please keep me posted and good luck.
Sincerely, Franklin