HOW TO OVERCOME ITS FEARS: the obstacle pillar fear

Horses are on one hand brave animals, but on the other they have several fears that, if not got over, they will develop during their life. The best thing to do is to help them avoid those fears by letting them see that there is nothing to worry about. 

If you do not work on these fears, or else you punish the horse when it shows them, you will end up making it develop bad behavior and an increase in that fear. 

We might find ourselves, for example, in the case of a horse that is afraid of the obstacle pillars, perhaps as a result of trauma (a fall in which it has been hit by a pillar, for example).

 The worst thing to do it would be to push him (perhaps with the help of the whip) to overcome the obstacle: the horse, following the intimidation and the beatings, might even overcome it, but surely this will help to increase the fear as it will associate the obstacle to the beatings; 

If he will begin to force the horse, he may at any time discard and refuse, causing serious damage to us and himself, since it hasn't really overcame its fear.

A good dynamic of action, definitely requiring more time and patience, but much more effective, could be this:

- First of all, we must gain its trust. A good basic way is to turn it on the training rod, pushing it to gallop (without screams and violence) and executing our orders like changing hands or stopping. Let's give it treats whenever he listens to us. When the horse follows us while we are walking it will be an excellent first sign of conquest.

- Once this is done, we will bring it in the field, always from the ground and not riding it, and we will give him treats if it will be able to stand next to obstacle pillars.

-Then take some barriers to the ground and let it gallop and trot on those.

- Taking two people, each on the sides of the barrier to the ground, we should encourage him with small treats to overcome the barrier passing through those people.

-Insert the pillars: the horse should now walk between the pillars, held by us with the lead and rewarded whenever it will pass this stage with extreme tranquility.

-The next step is to put the barrier to the ground between the pillars and let it overcome them.

-at the end we could start, if the horse responded well to the previous steps, with little obstacles.

This is a non-invasive and quiet method to overcome the fear of obstacle pillars on the horse. Each horse has a personal response to stimulations, the important thing is not to intervene with violence, and not to support its fears, but to convince it that there is nothing to be scared about and it can totally trust you.

I hope this article has been useful to you, soon I will publish others with different case reports.

Credits for the image: https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/445152744388864015/