Hi all,
I am looking for suggestions on dealing with a little problem I am having with my two and a half year old QH.

He is teething at the moment, and I have been putting a lot of his mouthiness and little nips down to him being a bit uncomfortable, I have had the vet and my equine dentist check him mouth recently, and they have confirmed his teeth are coming through fine and nothing should be making him unduly sore..

I am planning to start riding him next summer, but I am doing lots of halter work with him, he is great at wearing a saddle, trotting over poles in hand, and joining ridden horses on hacks and braving traffic - so far so good, I was feeling quite proud of the both of us!

However, the last couple times I have led him out in hand for a "halter hack", in company, he has been an absolute b****r!

Jogging sideways, trying to take chunks out of my arm, and a few half hearted half rears thrown in. I have made him back up or pinched his neck when he has bitten, and when he reared I swung the lead rope at him hard and shouted, and his head came down straight away, he licked and chewed and he tried to get in close to me. He looked really quite remorseful, but as soon as I tried to lead him on, he was sideways and silly again..

He leads beautifully from his night paddock to the day feild and back, is still great to do halter training in the feild with, but just when we go out on a jaunt across the feilds or on the lanes, he seems to be constantly testing my authority. He is also getting very boulshy with my old gelding, biting and chasing him all the time.

I am a great beleiver in it never being the horses fault, but the handlers lack of clear requests, when things go wrong. However, this very recent behaviour is a little bit frightening and really out of character...

I am really hoping its a stage he is going through, perhaps he knows he is bigger and is testing the authority of my gelding and me?

He is a great horse and usually so laid back - if anyone has any advice or has been through a similar thing with a horse this age, I would love to hear from you.

He was gelded when he was one so it cant be the old testosterone kicking in either!


Sorry for the length of the post - wanted to get all the details in!
Thank you!
Rach

Could he be trying to tell you that he needs a break? Baby horses have quite short attention spans and he might be finding things a bit too much, especially if his mouth is sore. If your walk hacks are more than about 15 minutes he might be finding it a bit stressful.
Our two year olds can nip, but I've found that flicking their noses with a fingernail soon stops them without them getting headshy.
We also had a problem with one boy getting very difficult to put his bridle or even halter on - turned out his weepy eye was a blocked tearduct. Since it's been cleared he's back to his usual cooperative self.
You could also look at his diet - the grass is very rich this year so he may be getting more than he needs. You could try cutting back on hard feed to see if this helps.

Good luck!

My two year old can be a bit mouthy at the moment but i just sorted it out by when she nips me puching into her mouth they really dont like it, apparently its what you do with dogs as well, or pulling her nose or using the prickly brush on a hoof pick and poking her in the nose with it, she didnt like it much and hardly ever nips now.

They just have a litte time when they are testing you out as well, your also taking him out of his comfort zone doing something a little different so he is bound to get a bit more excited and what not,

next time he rears if you can do it, or feel that you can, hook the rope under his front leg and pull him to the ground he will struggle a litle but you wont need to do it again as he should associate the unpleasant being restricted feeling with rearing. I found shouting and slapping didnt work with my two year old she thought it was a game and would prance about.

Thanks for those tips, I will certainly try the muzzle pinch or flick, I am all for a short sharp remedy rather than keeping on at him..

I also wondered if he was getting a bit too much protein, and I cut his feed down a few weeks ago.

It could all be a bit much for him I agree, the trouble is if I do nothing with him and he just stays in the field all day he soon gets bored and makes mischief!

Thanks again

My two year old is also starting to play up, he's usually fine with me, but tries to go up sometimes with my wife.
He's going away next month to be lightly started, so hopefully it will sort out some of his problems, he goes away for 6 weeks and then get turned away till next fall when the process starts all over again.

My two year old I find is alot better than most becasue she has been out and has done stuff, she is backed and i am walking ang jogging her around quietly and i have been working with her on the groun since she was one. she has also been shown as a yearling and as a two year old, and styas over night at shows if i need to with my other horse. mainly becasue we have no one to look after her at home so cant leave her behind, i think this is why she is a lot better behaved and more grown up than a lot of others i have seen recently.

You really need to be doing things with them when they are young even if its just letting them see things like walking them out, casue they are just gonna get bigger then more dangerous, so your doing the right thing by doing this.

I know the pulling him down when he rears sounds excessive but my filly did it once and i pulled her nose to her knee until she stopped struggling and shes not done it since, she was one that liked to rear as well and strike out with her front legs as well, i hope you wear a hard hat when handling him, espeically if he is one to rear