Horse and rider training

Welcome to Horse & Hound’s training hub. Whether you are looking for techniques to improve your riding skills, insight from top trainers and riders on how to prepare your horse for a specific sport, or tips to help solve specific problems, you will find useful advice from experts to help.

Horse & Hound’s training exercise of the week

Choose a topic:

• Dressage
• Eventing
• Showjumping
• Showing
• Cross-country
• Hacking
• Polework
• Gridwork
• Lateral work
• Groundwork
• How horses learn
• Young horses
• Riding techniques
• Rider fitness
• Rider mindset
• Problem solving
• Learning to ride

Daily training inspiration

Execute smarter square halts with just four poles

• Improve horse’s straightness
• Help with accurate placement of the halt
• Create a square halt

Try today’s exercise or find more daily inspiration.

Do you want some advice on introducing horses to new places? Perhaps you have a youngster you are ready to start taking out to lessons? Or have bought a new horse and want to try some small shows? Get off on the right foot with advice from Jason Webb, a trainer who specialises in starting young horses and retraining those with problems.

“When you take a horse out to a new environment for the first time it can be quite an overwhelming experience,” says Jason. “Having a plan of what to do is critical in creating behaviours that relax your horse and help them as they move forward into their careers and learn to relax in new places.”

Introducing horses to new places: Jason’s six-step plan

1. Do as little as possible

Jason says: “So you’ve unloaded and the horse is looking around, taking it in and they’re quite anxious. At this point I just allow them to take in the environment. People say get your horse busy, but a horse that’s in a flight state doesn’t tend to be able to learn or listen very well, they are slightly incoherent.

“At this point I allow them to move around, potentially on a circle so you can manage where they are going, and just wait for them to settle. Wait for their head to drop and then you can start to do something.”

2. Protect your personal space

“When they first come off the lorry, depending on your horse’s level of obedience on the ground, the main thing is to protect your person space,” adds Jason. “Some horses when they first come off will drop their shoulder into you or sort of tow you off.

“If you’re having those problems they need to be looked at in a familiar environment before you introduce any new environment, so when you come to this new environment you can use a few skills from home to keep your horse away from you, while doing as little as possible.”

3. Do some stretching exercises

Jason says you can recognise when a horse is starting to settle because their head lowers, their movement decreases and their eye starts to soften.

He goes on: “Then you can potentially start to say, ‘Here I am and it’s fine’. You do that by using familiar exercises. You’ll have your own thing you do with your horse, that your horse already knows, so use those things. What I like to use is static flexion or a carrot stretch, except I don’t use carrots, I just use the pressure of a headcollar, just to bend my horse’s head around towards me.

“So stand by the horse’s wither, use the headcollar to apply some pressure to ask the horse to bend its neck by about 90 degrees. I think of this like a tension barometer – if horse is really stiff and doesn’t want to bend when they know this exercise, it tells me they’re still a bit worried about the environment so I may need to wait a bit longer or do these stretches few times.”

Jason adds that stretching the body like this is a relaxing thing to do, if the horse knows the exercise, which in turn means the mind starts to relax.

4. Controlled leading

“So depending on how you lead your horse, I start to establish boundaries,” says Jason. “If leading from the side of the horse I start to say, ‘All right, you need to walk in a straight line for a little bit and only turn when I ask you to turn’ because some horses will push through you so we want to start to reduce that idea.”

Leading from the side, Jason establishes an invisible boundary parallel to the horse so he doesn’t look or walk across your body or line of travel. Leading from the front, he suggests putting your arms out to both sides and the invisible boundary is where your arms were once you’ve lowered them.

5. Lungeing may work – but approach with caution

“Some people recommend lungeing and getting horses moving – yes, if you have a suitable environment and the horse is receptive to it, that’s great,” says Jason. “But it isn’t always possible and I’m always careful with lungeing as it can excite a horse more before it brings them down.”

6. Ride in a small space

“When it comes to riding, I do a very similar thing to on the ground – allow the horse to move around a small area using bend, so small circles or serpentines in an area no bigger than 10m, to help me control horse,” says Jason.

“This allows the horse to get rid of excess energy without introducing them to more new environments. You are staying in one area but allowing movement to happen. Allow it to happen until you feel the head lower, the controls and movement become softer and the horse isn’t really looking to power on.

“When you to feel this, start to use work the horse knows at home to introduce similar boundaries before you move into new areas.”

Introducing horses to new places: where to go

If your horse hasn’t left his home previously, Jason suggests a “neutral environment” for his first outing, such as a friend’s place or a lesson – somewhere relatively quiet where you can manage the surroundings. Once a horse is used to this you can incrementally move to more energetic or intense environments.

“My last word is that horses tend to be more spooky in new environments, he says. “Make sure you have a plan to manage that spooky situation – for me flight situations are managed using one-rein controls and bend.”

• To stay up to date with all the breaking news throughout London International and more, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

You may also be interested in:

How can you tell if a horse is happy?

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

The Horse & Hound Podcast 52: Bob Champion | Taking a horse to a new place | News round-up

How to retrain a horse who bucks or rears – and why hitting them is never the answer

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Whether it’s due to bad habits, over enthusiasm or tension, being left dangling with one foot in the stirrup as your horse walks off can be a recipe for disaster. Lottie Buttler asked Jason Webb of Your Horsemanship how to train a horse to stand quietly beside the mounting block and to stay still throughout the mounting process

How to teach a horse to stand still for mounting

Teaching your horse to stand still while mounting is 90% groundwork. You need to be able to move your horse forwards, backwards and sideways. You should also be able to move away from him while he stands still for a minimum of 30 seconds — I call this parking. This work sounds easy, but it takes some practice.

What’s the best approach?

Before you attempt to position your horse near a proper mounting block, you need to de-sensitise him to the action of getting on and off the mounting block. Your horse should be comfortable with you jumping up and down alongside him at the very least. Then, to get him used to a mounting block, if you have a light weight one, pick it up, throw it in front of you and then follow, leading your horse.

When the horse is comfortable with that, start throwing it back past the side of him and following it. If you have a fixed or heavy block, use something else to simulate it, like a plastic water bucket. When the horse is fully de-sensitised to the block, he should be comfortable with you pushing it all around him, and even under him.

What’s the next step?

Once your horse is confident with the first two exercises, practice positioning your horse one step at a time beside an imaginary mounting block.

Try to do this while staying in front of them. I use a whip as an extension of my arm to gently encourage them to move forwards, backwards and sideways as required. Once in position, leave him “parked” until he relaxes, then give him a rub to reward him. Repeat until he is doing it easily and without question, before moving onto a real mounting block.

When you have your horse standing by the mounting block, expand on the rubbing by doing it all the way down each side, including from the mounting block. If the horse moves away, go back to the front and move him back into position by asking him to move the opposite way to how he stepped out of position. For example, if he steps forward, get him to step back. If he stepped back, bring him forward.

Once your horse can stand while you give him a rub all over from the mounting block, get down, lead him away and repeat. It’s the repetitions of this that make horses good to mount. Being able to do this three or four times in a row would be a good session.

What if my horse swings his quarters away?

Practice getting a turn on the forehand from the ground. Being able to do this is great for correcting horses that shuffle their hind end away when you’re about to get on.

Start by teaching your horse to do a static flexion. Static flexions are like carrot stretches, but you train them to do it as a response to the bit. Apply a gentle pressure on the bit and release when they stop moving and offer a bend. Eventually your horse will bend without moving.

Next, check your horse can move their hind end over from a simple gesture or cue. He should already be responsive to this from your previous work moving them forwards, backwards and sideways.

Once your horse is comfortable with static flexions and moving the hind end over, it’s time to put the two together. Stand to the left of your horse with the reins over their neck. Put your hands into a riding position from the ground then bend him to the right, rewarding him whenever he offers to bend. Your left hand on the left rein acts as a break if he moves forward. You can adjust your hands up and down the reins as you see fit.

To initiate the turn on the forehand, bend your horse to the right and follow their head round. As you do, you will get to a point that you can see the right side of your horse. From here cue your horse to move their hind end towards you. When he does move, watch his feet — the back legs should pivot around the right foreleg (turn on the forehand). Your horse is unlikely to do this straight away, so you may need to stop with the left rein and start again, or persevere until you see the correct step. Release and reward whenever you see a correct step. As your horse starts to realise what you are asking, he will respond to a light pressure on the right rein. Timing is key!

Then, if he tries to swing his quarters as you mount, you can pick up your right rein and he will step his hind end back towards the block.

Other useful tips to teach a horse to stand still for mounting

When you’re getting on, prepare your reins so you are able to shorten your left rein. This allows you to bring your horse around you should he move off as you’re getting on.

It is important that you and your horse are not in a hurry to move off. A good way to help with this is, after getting on and before you do anything else, work on your static flexions from the saddle. The horse might move off through habit, but work on the flexions until the horse can bend to the left and then to the right without moving.

After a week or two of being consistent with this, mounting issues should be a thing of the past. If you are still having issues while trying to teach a horse to stand still for mounting, this may be because the horse is physically uncomfortable, which could be a saddle-fit problem or a physical issue. In this situation I would organise visits from a professional saddle fitter, equine physio and vet. Remember, a horse in pain is impossible to train.

You might also be interested in:

11 reasons why the fit of your saddle should be checked now

Sue Carson, founder and managing director of Sue Carson Saddles explains why autumn is an important time to check the

Study finds dental discomfort can be identified in a horse’s face using the horse grimace scale

The Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram: how the phrase ‘that’s the way the horse has always gone’ is being challenged

For years it’s been thought that horses who swish their tail, put their ears back and open their mouth when

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits. 

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Have you ever wondered how to stop your horse being pushy on the ground? Does he barge when you lead him or refuse to stand tied up?

Dr Gemma Pearson, a qualified equine veterinary behaviourist who is director of equine behaviour for The Horse Trust, says improving this sort of problem comes back to training the horse’s basic responses.

“A lot of people will say, ‘I walk and my horse walks and I stop and my horse stops’ but this can lead us into problems,” she says, explaining that the horse’s cue to walk or stop in that situation is the person’s legs moving.

“So then you tie the horse up and walk away. Your legs have moved, but now you don’t want to horse to follow you, so that can be a bit confusing for the horse. Or the horse follows you until you go up the ramp of the trailer and then the horse doesn’t follow you any more, so what’s the next thing people do? They put pressure on the lead rope.

“In the case of the horse stopping when you stop, if a wheelie bin falls over behind your horse and it jumps forward, you’ll probably be knocked to the side anyway, but the next thing you do is put pressure on that lead rope [which the horse doesn’t understand as a cue] and that horse is not looking at your body language. So it’s really useful to teach horses to go and stop from pressure from the lead rope.”

How to stop your horse being pushy: retraining the basis responses

Gemma starts with the horse in halt and without moving her feet, puts gentle forwards pressure on the lead rope.

She says: “As soon as the horse goes to step forwards, I release that pressure back to neutral. Then of course you have to start walking with the horse, but the key thing is that the horse’s cue to move forward is pressure from the lead rope.

“The easiest thing with teaching a horse to stop is to teach it back up because the same muscles are involved in backing up as stopping. Stand still, facing the horse, so you can watch what the hooves are doing. Put light pressure on the lead rope and as soon as a hoof lifts off the ground and starts to go backwards, release the pressure.

“The timing is so crucial to training the correct response here because the horse then starts to think, ‘Oh the way to make pressure go away when the pressure is backward is to step back, the way to make pressure go away when the pressure is forwards is to step forwards.’ And once the horse understands that, you can lead them forwards, you put backwards pressure on the lead rope and the horse will stop.”

Gemma says that once these responses are ingrained, in the scenario where a wheelie bin falls over and the horse shoots forward, they get to the end of the lead rope, feel pressure and stop.

She also gives an example of a situation where a young horse being trained to lead was useful. Her partner at the time was a farmer and rang her at work, at a vet hospital, to say her three-year-old stallion had cut its leg and needed vet attention. She told him to put the horse in the trailer and bring him in to work.

“He said, ‘But he’s never been in a trailer before’ and I said, ‘No, but I’ve taught him to lead correctly.’ So he arrived there and I asked how he was loading, and he said, ‘Yeah, I walked him up to the ramp and he went to stop and I put pressure on the lead rope and he stepped forward and then he was in the trailer.’ Obviously that’s not ideal – we want to practise before we take horses on journeys – but in this scenario, we had to get him up to my work.”

Pushy horses: they’re not naughty

Gemma says people often think bargy or pushy horses don’t respect humans, are naughty or think they’re the boss.

“None of that is true, it’s simply because we haven’t taught them to lead correctly,” she says. “So if you have a bargy horse just teach them to go forwards, to stop, to step back, and when you’re leading them, if they start to accelerate a little bit, just slow them down again.

“You’ll know if this works because horses shouldn’t change their head and neck position when you give them a lead rope cue. With bargy horses, what happens is they start to go faster than the person wants, often into the person, the person puts pressure on the lead rope and they raise their head in the air or they flex their head and neck or they bend their head and neck round to the side and that is their response to lead rope pressure. So just by teaching them to immediately slow off light pressure, these horses stop being bargy.”

Teaching horses to stand still

Gemma reiterates that in terms of teaching horses to stand still unless they are given a cue otherwise, it’s important not to teach the horse to follow your legs, as otherwise if the horse is tied up or in the trailer and you move away, it is receiving confusing signals.

To teach her horses to stand still she faces the horse, looks at it and at their hooves particularly.

She says: “Then I might take half a step back and if the horse tries to follow me, I’ll step them back to where they started and give them a scratch. Then I might take half a step and if they don’t follow me, I’ll go in and give them a scratch. I’ll build that up until I can walk all the way to the end of the lead rope and the horse doesn’t follow me.

“I may then put the lead rope over the end of the neck – if I’m in a safe enclosed space – and walk all the way round the horse and the horse doesn’t follow me. So they learn to stand still unless they’re asked to do otherwise.”

If you’re thinking about how to stop your horse being pushy, this is advantageous.

“A horse that stand still as a habit is calm as a habit, she says. “When we talk about bargy horses, they have a high level of arousal. Whether it’s excitement or stress, their level of arousal is too high and that’s why they start pushing into people.

“So teach them to stand still as a habit, to be calm as a habit, to step forwards and back off lead rope pressure. This means they are really light and then they develop their own self carriage [continuing at the same speed until cued otherwise] for leading correctly.”

You might also be interested in:

The Horse & Hound Podcast 131: International dressage rider Abi Lyle | Teaching horses to stand still | News round-up

7 headcollars for handling strong horses safely

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

8 rope halters that give more precise aids for training

How to retrain a horse who bucks or rears – and why hitting them is never the answer

Horse & Hound’s beginners’ guide to clicker training

How to retrain a strong horse so you can slow down and stop in a snaffle

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Emotions in horses can be difficult to read. Horses don’t smile in the same way as humans and they can’t tell us if they are sad, miserable or in pain. So as riders and horsemen (and women), we have to learn how to figure out horses’ feelings.

“Obviously we’ve all been brought up to try not to anthropomorphise too much – we don’t want to infer emotions on horses that they’re maybe not capable of experiencing,” says Dr Gemma Pearson, a qualified equine veterinary behaviourist who is director of equine behaviour for The Horse Trust. “I still see an awful lot of that – riders and trainers talking about the horse doing this because of that and actually you think that really is anthropomorphism. That’s not a route we really want to go down.

“But at the same time, there are things we do understand about emotions in horses.”

Gemma splits this knowledge into two different areas.

“First of all we talk about the horse’s level of arousal – that’s almost like the horse’s level of alertness. We can have horses which have a low level of arousal, which are very relaxed, and then we can have horses that have a very high level of arousal,” she explains.

The second area is the “affective state” of the horse.

She says: “This is basically whether the horse is happy or sad. How do we know if a horse is happy? To be honest we never will, but we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Just because we can’t measure something perfectly, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a good idea from other work that we’ve done. I’m sure we all know the difference between a horse that’s eating its feed or grazing with its friend and it’s very happy, compared to a horse that’s very stressed.”

A happy horse with a high level of arousal would be experiencing what we might describe as excitement.

“We often talk about a happy horse with a low level of arousal being relaxed and that’s great, but if you’re taking a horse around a cross-country course, you don’t want them to be too relaxed – you’ve got to have some adrenaline flowing and the horse’s level of arousal has to be pretty high. That keeps them sharp,” says Gemma.

“The other side of the coin is where we have a negative affective state so unhappy horses. Again, we can have that with a high level of arousal so that’s horses that we might describe as stressed, or with a low level of arousal so that’s where we might start to think about things like depression in horses or learned helplessness, where a horse looks really dull in its eye and they’re not reacting to very much in the environment.”

Emotions in horses: arousal levels

Gemma says a lot of the time when she sees people having problems working with horses, it’s because the horse’s level of arousal is too high for what the person is trying to achieve.

“When the horse’s level of arousal is too high, they can’t learn any more,” she says.

Gemma says this is the same in people – there’s an optimum level of stress or arousal for learning or performance. If the level is too low, you’re too relaxed and don’t perform well, but once it gets too high you can’t perform well either.

“Most of the time when I see problems with horses it’s because their arousal level is really high and we need to break it down, make whatever exercise we’re doing easier for the horse and help them to stay calmer.”

How can you check a horse’s arousal level?

“Obviously we can look for the normal behavioural indicators that the horse is hypervigilant – its ears and eyes are focused on everything in the environment but not necessarily the rider or the handler, and the horse may have a lot of muscular tension,” she says.

“Look at the eye, look at the ears, look at the muzzle. The muzzle may become longer so the corner of the lip gets drawn back, the chin may become more prominent. Look for generalised muscular tension in the horse and that will give you a really good indicator whether their level of arousal is acceptable or not.

“If you’re riding them you’ll feel it in the way they move – rather than being nice and loose and relaxed, the steps just become that little bit more jerky and tense.”

Gemma says that being able to recognise these different states in horses is really important for optimising training.

Coping styles: active and reactive

We also need to remember that horses have different coping styles.

Gemma explains: “When we talk about horses with a high level of arousal, with a negative affective state, so a stressed or tense horse, people automatically think of the fight or flight response.

“This is what we call an active coping mechanism – the horse sees something they are fearful of and they try and run away from it. For example, the horse is fearful of clippers, someone’s holding on to them, the horse barges them out the way. And if that’s not going to work, if the horse feels it’s their only option they may resort to kicking or biting or striking out at people.”

Gemma adds fidget to fight and flight as active coping mechanisms.

“This is with a slightly lower level of arousal – when you have a horse that’s fairly relaxed and you go to do something with them, maybe think about clipping them, and all of a sudden they have to rub their head on you or they have to sniff the floor or they have to start itching their side. These horses are actually showing they’re not very confident with what we’re doing at that point in time, so they’re starting to fidget.”

Then there are horses which are “reactive copers”.

“This is where horses can freeze and I think this is something people miss a lot in horses. They’ll often say the horse was stood still and then they suddenly exploded. These animals will freeze, stand there and do nothing, until they get to a certain threshold and then that’s when they may explode – a little like a rabbit might freeze in the headlights or when someone’s approaching it, until the person gets too far, too close to them and then they may suddenly shoot off.”

Gemma frequently sees horses freezing when they are being loaded onto the trailer or lorry and they plant on the ramp, leading handlers to believe the horse is being stubborn.

“But when you actually look at these horses, they’re not calm and relaxed and enjoying life – they’re actually really tense. They’ve gone into this freeze response where they just try to switch off to all the cues and that may be people shouting at the horse, hitting the horse, pulling on the headcollar. That’s their coping mechanism until it gets to a certain level and then the horse may shoot backwards or try and jump off the side.”

You might also be interested in:

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

Is your horse in pain? New videos explain the key signs

The aim of the video series is to improve welfare and performance in ridden horses

The Horse & Hound Podcast 127: Yasmin Ingham | Pau five-star review | Emotion in horses | News round-up

Education on how horses learn may help keep vets safe

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Riding a horse which is bucking and rearing isn’t fun for anyone.

Dr Gemma Pearson, a qualified equine veterinary behaviourist who is director of equine behaviour for The Horse Trust, emphasises that it’s vital to consider pain as the first reason why a horse might show such behaviour.

“Almost all the horses I see with bucking and rearing have pain as a component,” says Gemma. “I’ve seen horses working at elite level dressage, I’ve seen horses that are jumping, doing endurance riding, hacking and everyone says they’re fine except when they’re bucking and rearing. They’re winning at competitions, therefore pain can’t be a component, but if often is.

“So it’s really important to speak to your vets and have a good look into pain for bucking and rearing. Sue Dyson’s ridden horse pain ethogram is a great way to consider whether any of these other signs of pain are occurring at the same time.”

Gemma sees a very small number of horses where bucking and rearing is not due to pain.

She says: “So then it comes back to deficits in the trained responses. Horses never have an agenda, horses are never naughty. You get the behaviour you reinforce, not the behaviour you want. So most of the time these behaviours have been accidentally reinforced.

“For both bucking and rearing, it tends to come back to deficits in the go forwards response or the stop response. On the one hand, you may have a horse that’s going along well, perhaps you’re in a field where you always canter with your friends, perhaps the horse starts to buck or the horse starts to rear. It’s normally because the rider is holding the horse back with the reins. The horse wants to go faster than the rider does because they don’t want to run into their friend on their horse in front of them.

“In this scenario we need to think about retraining the horse to slow down off light bit pressure and then to maintain self carriage [keep going at the same speed]. The reason the horse may start to rear or may start to buck in that scenario is because the horse is motivated to go forwards, it wants to gallop with its friends, so the bit pressure then becomes uncomfortable for them.

“So the way that they feel they can resolve the bit pressure ,which is stopping them being able to gallop, is often to do a little rear. And if they do a little rear, obviously we don’t want to pull the horse over backwards so the rider often changes the bit pressure, which is self reinforcing.

“The same if the horse does a little buck – it’s going to displace the rider in the saddle slightly, therefore the bit pressure has been released for a fraction of a second and that has just reinforced that behaviour, so we are training these behaviours.”

On the other side of the coin are horses who don’t want to go forwards. The rider uses increasing leg pressure, then the horse suddenly stops and either rears or bucks or kicks out.

“That is the horse’s way of trying to remove the rider’s leg pressure,” explains Gemma. “This horse has not been trained to go forwards off the leg successfully, therefore its alternative way of removing this increased leg pressure is to rear or buck.”

If the horse needs to be retrained to slow or stop from light rein pressure, Gemma recommends looking at her advice for retraining strong horses; if it needs to be retrained to go forwards from light leg pressure, she recommends revisiting her advice for horses who nap.

Bucking and rearing: why punishment doesn’t work

Gemma says riders should not try to punish horses for bucking and rearing.

“If the horse goes to rear and the rider smacks it with the whip, all that’s going to happen is the horse is going to associate the increased pressure from rein or leg with that. The horse thinks about rearing, the next thing that happens is the whip is there so the horse may try rearing higher, they may try napping or launching or bucking. They’re probably going to try a different behaviour to prevent being hit with the whip,” she says.

“What the horse can’t understand is that if they were going forwards in the first place, the rider wouldn’t have had to use the whip. That’s a higher cognitive process, that concept is too hard for the horse to understand.

“We should never use punishment, we need to identify what the deficit is in going forward or slowing or stopping and then quietly retrain that by breaking it down into easy to achieve steps.”

Gemma adds that when horses rear, the don’t tend to land straight but to one side or the other.

“As with napping, most horses that rear tend to land to the left because they like to push off that right foreleg, so you often need to retrain straightness in these horses as well,” she says.

Gemma also says she sees two types of buck.

“If you put the leg on or excessive rein pressure and the horse kicks out at that, that’s often because of the pressure. If the horse raises its head up and its bum comes up in the air to buck, that can be due to pain but it can be due to increased rein or leg pressure that the horse is trying to remove. And I would call that a U-shaped buck – the horses’ head and bum are at the highest point and the saddle is at the lowest point,” she says.

“The other sort is an N-shaped buck, like broncing, this is when the head stays down, the bum stays down and the wither and the saddle becomes the highest point of the buck. I’ve honestly never seen a single case that bucks like that that isn’t due to pain – things like kissing spines, other forms of spinal pain, neck pain, are probably the most common reasons we’d see that type of buck in horses. It can be due to other musculoskeletal pain or fractures of the sternum or ribs.

“If a horse is bucking like that I think they’re the most dangerous ones, the ones where people are most likely to get severe injuries if they’re bucked off. And if it’s an N-shaped buck not a U-shaped buck, no one should be sitting on that horse until you’ve had a really thorough veterinary investigation.”

You might also be interested in:

How to retrain a strong horse so you can slow down and stop in a snaffle

Why horses nap and refuse to go forward – and how to re-train them

The Horse & Hound Podcast 130: Paul Nicholls | Horses that rear or buck | News round-up

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Strong horses can be a nightmare for riders – it’s never fun being out of control and it can be downright dangerous if you can’t adjust your horse’s speed.

Dr Gemma Pearson, a qualified equine veterinary behaviourist who is director of equine behaviour for The Horse Trust, offers advice for retraining such horses, but she starts by saying that as a behaviourist, she hates the term “strong” being used about horses.

“Obviously horses are strong. We wouldn’t – or shouldn’t – be riding them if they were weak, so what do we mean by a strong horse?” she says. “What people normally mean is that the horse pulls on the reins and that you need increased rein pressure to control the horse.

“So from a behaviourist’s perspective, I would start to break that down and say the horse has a deficit to slowing and stopping from rein pressure. I would also say that the horse is unable to maintain self carriage – so when the horse is being ridden, the horse starts to accelerate without being cued from the rider.”

Gemma says a typical scenario is a horse whose owner says he’s fine to ride in most situations, but becomes strong on a cross-country course.

“The horse associates the cross-country course, the start box, the jumps, with galloping so it triggers that kind of emotional response of excitement, of let’s start galloping, so the horse does that. Then the rider is unable to control them from the reins, but that can in itself cause discomfort in the horse’s mouth, which can mean some horses try and get faster and faster. And then you need increasingly strong bits, and different or tight nosebands to control these horses.”

Retraining strong horses

“To state the obvious, we retrain the horse to slow and stop from rein pressure,” says Gemma. “It is important they understand this from rein pressure and not just from our seat – once the rein pressure works correctly, then we use our seat so hopefully we don’t need to use the reins, but it’s always there as a back up and to reinforce the seat if needed.”

When backing a young horse, Gemma will teach them to step forward and back from rein pressure in hand and then will put the reins over the horse’s head and her hands either side of the withers, mimicking the riding position.

“I’ll put light pressure on the reins and these horses just step backwards, because they’ve learnt that backwards bit pressure means to step back,” she says, adding that horses use the same muscles to step back as to slow down when moving forwards, so the better the horse steps back from light rein pressure, the better their slow down response will be.

Sometimes, horses will flex or raise their head and neck instead of stepping back, so they associate bit pressure with changes in head and neck position, not with movement of the feet.

“If you put too much pressure on, horses just brace against it or as we often see, they raise their head and neck in the air and they hollow through the back,” says Gemma.

“If the horse really doesn’t understand rein pressure, you may even have someone in front and they can put a bit of pressure on the horse’s chest with a hand or even with a light whip tap. The millisecond the horse starts to step back, we release the pressure on the mouth entirely. The horse will very quickly learn not to move the head and neck and that the way to make the bit pressure go away is to step backwards. Eventually we’ll go back to a contact level of pressure, but initially we make it really clear for the horse.”

Once the horse can step back from light rein pressure, Gemma repeats the process with walk to halt transitions.

“I count the number of steps of the front feet. If you use light rein pressure, the horse should be able to halt within two steps. If it takes five, that tells me there’s a deficit in the stop response. So if you do two steps without stopping, I would put more rein pressure on and make the halt happen. But again the millisecond you feel the horse slow down and stop, release that rein pressure – that’s the reward and reinforces that that was the correct behaviour.”

Gemma will then do trot to walk and canter to trot transitions, before working on changing speed within the pace.

“If you think about the amount of squeeze on the reins it takes to bring the horse down from trot to walk, think about using 10% of that to get the horse just to take some slower steps,” she says.

Once the horse can slow down or stop from rein pressure, then we need to teach them to maintain self carriage – that is, to maintain the same speed until the rider cues them otherwise.

Gemma explains: “So at this point I may be cantering the horse and I may use light rein pressure to bring them into a slow cante,r but then I’ve got to be able to give and retake the reins without the horse accelerating again. That proves to me that I’m not holding the horse slow. If the horse does accelerate, you just slow them down again and then try again a bit later on. And you’ll find the horse learns to maintain that slower rhythm.”

The next step will be to work the horse in a field with jumps in it, but without actually jumping.

“The visual stimulus of the jump might encourage that horse to want to accelerate, but if we can train the horse to slow down and stop off light bit pressure and then maintain the slow canter around the jumps, in a couple of sessions, then we might start to work over the jumps,” says Gemma.

“If you’ve got a horse that starts to bolt towards or accelerate rapidly towards the jump, teach them to go slowly towards it. If you’re a long way out from the jump, I would even halt if you can feel them starting to rush.

“Once you get within about five strides of the jump I wouldn’t try to halt because we don’t want to teach the horse to refuse and we also don’t want to upset them – it’s their job to actually get over the jump. But what I would do is when they land on the other side, I would quietly bring them back to a halt. Release the rein pressure – that’s the most important bit – and let them gently walk away.

“If you just keep repeating that, you’ll find that these horses start to approach in a decent rhythm. Even if you get that nice draw into a fence where they may accelerate slightly into it, but then they’re expecting to halt after it so they immediately slow themselves down again. And then you might not need to slow down, you might be able to use your leg and go on and jump the next jump.”

The role of bits and nosebands

As a final point, Gemma emphasises that she would like to see horses ridden in snaffles with normal cavesson nosebands.

“Obviously there are lots of different scenarios and there are times when horses may need something different, but people often use a pelham or a gag because it feels lighter in their hand, but you’ve got to remember that because of the leverage, it putting an awful lot more pressure on the horse’s mouth so it’s not any lighter in the horse’s mouth, it just feels lighter to you,” she says.

Gemma adds that more severe bits and tighter nosebands can sometimes result in damage inside the horse’s mouth. If horse sport is to maintain its public acceptance it’s important that we train horses to stop off light rein pressure, to maintain that slower speed and not to accelerate without being asked.

“If we can do that, we never get into the situation of needing stronger bits and tighter nosebands,” she says.

She does, though, emphasise that safety is paramount.

“I’m not saying if you’ve got a horse that you struggle to control in a gag bit with a tight grackle noseband, just put it in a snaffle. Safety is the most important aspect and you have to have control. But try to get the horse lighter and you’ll find most of these horses over time you can get back to using snaffles with nosebands that are not tight.”

You might also be interested in:

The Horse & Hound Podcast 129: Carl Hester | Strong horses | News round-up

Why horses nap and refuse to go forward – and how to re-train them

Eggbutt snaffle or loose ring: what’s the difference?

Snaffles are the most widely used bits on the market, but what is the difference between a loose ring and

How can you tell if a horse is happy?

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Napping horses. Every rider will have come across one or two of them in their time – the horse who refuses to go forward, who baulks at a certain point in every ride or when leaving the yard.

“As a behaviourist, first we want to understand what motivates this behaviour,” says Dr Gemma Pearson, a qualified equine veterinary behaviourist who is director of equine behaviour for The Horse Trust.

“About 80% of cases I see have pain as a contributing factor. There are often behavioural aspects as well and we need to put in place a behaviour modification programme for these horses, but pain is really common and it’s really under-recognised in horses.”

Gemma recommends looking at Sue Dyson’s work on The Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram.

“Look for some of these things in your horse and if they’re occurring, particularly when they go to nap, that might indicate we need to get the vets to look at the horse before we even start to look at the behavioural aspects,” she says.

Assuming that the horse is not in pain – their saddle fits well, they’ve had his teeth done and been checked by the vet – why might a horse nap and how can we re-train them?

Napping horses: the cue to go forward

“Napping means the horse has lost self carriage for the go forward response,” says Gemma. “When I’m backing and training a young horse, I teach them they go forward off my leg and eventually off the seat cue. Then they keep going forward at the same pace, the same tempo, the same stride length, the same direction until I ask them otherwise.

“What you’ll often see when you watch horses who nap is that the rider is having to keep the horse going by nagging them with their leg. If you’re using your leg pressure and the horse isn’t going faster or taking longer steps, then you’ve habituated the horse to that leg pressure – you’ve taught them to ignore it. So then you may have to use more.

“When I ask the rider to stop using their legs, these horses often immediately slow down and that shows me there’s a deficit in one of the basic responses for these horses.”

Gemma says she thinks it is important that the horse goes forward from a leg cue, rather than any other aid.

“People will often say the horse goes forward from my seat or even from a voice cue, but when the horse has just suddenly put the brakes on, they never go forward from a seat or voice cue and there’s no way of reinforcing that or making that a little bit stronger – you can shout louder, but I think for the horse that becomes a different cue,” she says.

“So I’ll always teach horses that I put a very light leg cue on and as soon as the horse goes to take even a single step forward, we release that leg cue.”

When dealing with a horse who has been accidentally trained to ignore leg pressure, Gemma may use gentle whip taps.

She explains: “I’ll get the riders to take their legs away from the horse’s sides slightly and just tickle the horse right behind the leg, like an irritating fly. The millisecond that horse starts to take a step forward, we’ll get the rider to stop tapping with the whip and release the pressure. It doesn’t matter if the horse stops again. This is removal reinforcement or negative reinforcement – the millisecond the horse offers the correct response, you reward the horse by stopping using the stick.

“So we’ll do that from halt to walk and then we’ll do the same exercise from walk to trot and then we might even do it, just using whip taps, from halt to trot, so you keep tapping just a little bit harder until the horse goes into trot. At this point the rider has not used any leg whatsoever.

“It’s really important to say that the amount of whip taps we use motivates the horse to step forward, but it never induces pain or fear, so it’s more about it being an irritating pressure than using lots of pressure.

“And we never just use the whip once because the horse can’t predict that and they can’t release it. If you start off with really finger light tapping on the horse’s side and then make it faster and faster and very slightly stronger, the horse can release it by stepping forward.

“Then you go back and use your legs. If you use your leg to ask the horse to move forward and they don’t, you can back it up with the whip tap. But you’ll often find as soon as you use your legs, these horse do immediately step forward.

“So you’ve now got a horse which hopefully maintains self carriage for going forward – but if they slow down when you take your leg slightly away from the saddle, then you use a fresh leg cue to ask the horse to go forward again, until they can maintain that without ongoing leg cues. We’ve now got a horse who goes forward off a leg cue and it maintains self carriage for going forward.”

Training straightness

When horses nap, they usually slow down, stop and then spin away.

“Most horses spin left, says Gemma. “A bit like we’re right-handed, most horses will push off that right forelimb and go to the left.

“With horses that nap, I’ll get the rider to go down the centre line and take both legs away – sometimes the horse will drift a little bit, even if they maintain their speed and line. Also I ask the riders just to give and retake the reins for two seconds – you’ll often find the horses drift and a lot of them will drift left, because they are falling out through the shoulder.

“This tells me the rider is constantly using the reins to keep the horse straight and therefore when the horse does nap, they just push through that pressure that’s already there. So I want to train the horse to maintain straightness by themselves – that is their job.

“So we’ll retrain the horse, initially using the reins. I might open my rein away from the horse’s shoulder so the horse will step the foreleg on that side away from the horse’s body. We don’t want them bending the head and neck – how many horses do you see where the horse tries to go left, so the rider tries to use the reins to position the horse’s head to the right, but the shoulders keep going left?

“What’s really important is that if you give a rein cue, you can use that to move the horse’s foot away from its body and that initiates a turn response. If I move my right rein away from the horse’s body then the horse steps right, but if I put my left rein against the horse’s neck I also want the horse’s shoulders to move to the right and the horse to step to the right.”

Once you have retrained the horse’s responses to leg cues to go forward and to rein cues to stay straight, dealing with a nappy horse should become easier.

“In the worst case scenario, if the horse has spun, stop them, turn them back the same way,” says Gemma. “People will often say spin them in a full circle, but if the horse stopped and pushed off its right foreleg and you then continue to spin it round to the left, you’re practising pushing off that right foreleg more and more.

“If the horse spins round and is facing the other direction and it’s pushed off its right foreleg so it’s spun left, I then get them to push off the left foreleg to bring themselves right to straighten themselves up again. And then ask them to go forwards.”

And finally…

Gemma also reminds riders that if the horse always naps at one spot, they may be thinking that every time they come there, their rider puts them under lots of pressure.

“So I’d almost think of taking the horse towards that spot and halting them and giving them a scratch. Making it nice for them. Then just ask for a few steps forward and give them another scratch. Maybe even give them a small food reward. So rather than trying to force the horse to complying in an area they may be fearful of, instead we’re trying to set the horse up for success by helping them be more confident and want to go forward in certain areas.”

Gemma also has advice for riding horses which suddenly put the brakes on, having been walking forward happily, which she sees as a subset of napping horses.

“Sometimes you can even feel the horse’s heart beating through the saddle, so we know this horse has a very high level of arousal, she says. “The temptation is to put the leg on to try and get the horse going forwards.”

Gemma refers to a study in which an umbrella was lowered into an arena of loose horses. The most common response was for horses to stop and startle, and it took an average of 13 seconds for horses’ heart rates to start to drop. In some horses, it took nearly a minute.

“If they stop that suddenly and you can feel the heart rate and the head’s gone up and they’ve gone really tense, just give them a scratch, just let them stop for a second, because at that point in time, they’re probably in a high state of arousal so they’re not capable of learning.

“And if you just give them a scratch and let them look, just give them a second to think about it, the horse will often walk on ok. I will actually get people to count up to 15 or 30 and then quietly ask them to move on. But if you try and ask them to walk on at the start, the horse is in a freeze response, they initially respond to nothing, the rider puts more pressure on and then they suddenly explode.”

Gemma concludes with a reminder that pain is an underlying contributing factor in 80% of napping horses.

“So please do get these things looked into – just trotting the horse up in a straight line is not going to tell us very much. Work with your vets to see the horse on the lunge and under saddle,” she says.

You might also be interested in:

The Horse & Hound Podcast 128: Working hunter specialist Kelly Ward | Why horses nap | News round-up

Why a pat on the neck isn’t what your horse would choose and how to use rewards effectively in training

How can you tell if a horse is happy?

Is your horse in pain? New videos explain the key signs

The aim of the video series is to improve welfare and performance in ridden horses

Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Australian Horseman Jason Webb who is based in the UK and runs his online training website www.yourhorsemanship.com has a passion for starting young horses, solving equine problems and teaching riders of all abilities and ambitions develop and strengthen the partnership they have with their horses. Here Jason helps one H&H forum user who has a problem with her horse rearing

Q: “My hot-headed mare always threatens to rear before she does. Her back tenses up, she takes a few steps backwards and then goes up. When I feel her doing this what is the best thing to do to stop her? I fear just giving her a good kick would make her go up higher. She’s a mare so should I ‘ask’ her to do something else and go back to that when she has cleared her head?”

A: First of all, it is worth pointing out that hot-headed horses are easily frustrated when they are not given something to do or if they don’t understand what it is you are asking of them. They are generally not the easiest pupils I’m afraid to say, but they are extremely rewarding if you can channel their energy and teach them to relax and be secure.

Long-term, working on balance is key to sorting this problem. By this I mean her being able to travel in a rhythm with a long neck and relax. The difficulty in doing this is that when you encourage this type of horse to lengthen they tend to speed up. To rectify this requires good control of your own body, in particular staying calm and not being tipped or pulled forward. When using the rein get them to steady but relax on the contact and when they do to reward them. It is important not to hang onto them as this will cause them to go faster or get more tense under you. You shouldn’t have to kick or hold them when they get this right, they should just go along in a steady rhythm. This does take time but is key to helping you long term and I find working on a constant bend (serpentines and circles) helps a lot.

Continued below…

Related articles:

• H&H forum: find out what H&H readers suggested
• Jason Webb: Why do horses rear?
• 10 training tips that top riders swear by

When your horse attempt to rear:

Should you find yourself in a situation where your horse is going to rear, there is a simple exercise which will help to keep you both safe and prevent the rear. The movement is known as “disengaging the hind end”, which is when you move her hind end around to the left or right. I have some videos on the Your Horsemanship website to teach your horse this exercise. The reason this movement is so effective is that it takes the horse’s engine away from them and it is very difficult for them to rear or in fact do most things that we don’t want them to do when applied! Teaching your horse to disengage the hind end is key to you being able to safely manage rearing but then to get a long term “fix”, work on their balance.

How to disengage the hind end:

To move your horse’s hind end it is best to bend them using just your left or just your right rein in order to bend your horses neck (use the rein independently of the other rein). Back up your rein aid by using your body and turning in the saddle and specify your inside aids to push the rest of your horse’s body through creating this movement.

A good time to practice this is when you ask her to stand. Busy or rearing horses don’t tend to do this very well and want to move off before you ask them. The rider then generally pulls back to stop them and they threaten to go up. So once you get her to stand, relax your reins to reward her and if she marches off then don’t pull her but disengage her to correct the movement. You may find yourself going around in circles but this is not your choice, it is theirs and pretty soon they are going to realise their idea of marching off isn’t that great and that your option of standing still is much easier. Use one direction at a time but alternate after each time they stand. Doing this is also teaching your horse the habit of bending when they are tense and bothered.

If you were to pull on both reins to get them to stand you will find their head will elevate and they will lighten in front and start to rear. What other options do they have?

In summary, spend a lot of time working in a longer frame with good rhythm and teach them to stand and switch off, better known as patience!

Hope this helps and good luck.

Jason

Visit Equo Events to find out more and to attend and take part in Jason’s Your Horsemanship clinics

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Jason Webb of Australian Horse Training is a renowned UK-based horse trainer with a passion for starting young horses, solving equine problems and teaching riders of all abilities and ambitions develop and strengthen the partnership they have with their horses. Here Jason gives one H&H forum user advice on how to get her horse more settled while being shod by the farrier

Q: “My horse is difficult with the farrier: My mare has always been difficult to shoe. However now we have to sedate her which is costing a fortune. We used to give her Sedaline but this now has no effect and my farrier prefers her to be completely sedated now. He is a very experienced farrier but has not come across this sort of problem before. I think it is a mixture of her being nervous from a previous experience and also a habit to act this way. She does not kick out but snorts her head off and will suddenly pull her leg away and barge through whoever is handling her. If other horses on the yard are being shod she again snorts her head of and gets very nervous. She is fine to have her feet picked out and in all other aspects on the ground. I have tried putting a bridle on and a twitch so I wondered if you had any suggestions please?”

A: Horses that snort like this tend to be genuinely worried and can become irrational very quickly. If it is an association specifically with the farrier, then this might be more difficult to fix because it may not necessarily be a leg handling issue.

Continued below…

Related articles:

• H&H forum: find out what H&H readers suggested
• To shoe, or not to shoe?
• Wet, muddy legs — and more of your farrier’s pet hates

This will need to be a case of desensitising your horse to the farrier over a period of time.

I would start with teaching my horse to stand while tied up. I do a tying up exercise called “standing on the tie”, which would be a really useful thing to do with her. It involves tying your horse safely on the yard (I use a resistance tie system) before moving your horse’s hindquarters over from right to left and back a few times, before asking them to stand and settle at a point of your choosing, through your body language and saying the word “stand” as her cue. Then, walk at a safe distance behind the horse to see if they stay standing. If they move off the spot, repeat the exercise until they stand without moving.

This can take a lot of patience and repetition, but it is an important training step. If you can get her good at this exercise, then whenever she gets fractious you can move her, get her to refocus and show her where to stand to be comfortable and relaxed. This will be useful when the farrier comes on the yard and she starts looking for her escape route. This exercise can be seen on www.yourhorsemanship.com.

I would practice this while other horses are being shod on the yard and I would get your farrier to come over once she is settled and just pick her feet up.

This is a starting point, but you may need some professional help to get you going. Good Luck! Jason

For more information on Jason Webb and his online training base Your Horsemanship, where you can learn a foundation in horse training with online lessons in groundwork, starting, and ridden fundamentals, visit his website

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Jason Webb of Australian Horse Training is a renowned UK-based horse trainer with a passion for starting young horses, solving equine problems and teaching riders of all abilities and ambitions develop and strengthen the partnership they have with their horses. Here Jason helps one H&H forum user with how to train a horse to stand quietly on a horsebox while at a competition

Q: Training to stand quietly on the lorry: “Has anyone got any successful methods of encouraging a youngster to stand quietly on the lorry on arrival at shows? Loading and travelling isn’t a problem but once at a show and when she can hear other horses, my mare becomes agitated and just wants out. It doesn’t matter if the ramp is left up or put down, she just starts throwing herself about. Obviously I’m hoping this will improve with regular outings but at the moment I’m struggling to get her tacked up as I go to training and shows by myself and she is literally throwing herself against the partition and leaning on it until she is allowed out. I’m wondering if clicker training could help in this situation but any other ideas would be gratefully received as I don’t want an injured horse or broken partition. Travelling with a companion is sadly not an option.”

A: Hello!

How easy this is to fix depends on your horse’s levels of anxiety on the box. Some horses go onto the box and are immediately wide-eyed, anxious and fretful, and this will only exacerbate when you arrive at a new venue. Whereas others demonstrate the behaviours you have described due to being plain impatient. It is most likely that your horse has a combination of anxiety and impatience, which manifests itself when you arrive at a new environment. Her adrenalin will increase, and in a flight animal, this means that she will have an overwhelming desire to move. She will also be anticipating being taken off the box, which will only increase her impatience.

I would start at home, by teaching your horse the word “stand” using a tying up exercise, for which you could incorporate some positive reinforcement techniques. You may find that she demonstrates similar behaviours if she is left on the yard on her own, if her friends leave her, or if you tied her to the side of the horsebox at events. Therefore, a tying up exercise and responding to the word “stand” will help in a number of situations, both on the ground and when ridden. I have a great tying up exercise called “standing on the tie”, which is available via www.yourhorsemanship.com that you might want to have a look at.

To work on the specific problem of keeping her quiet on the horsebox, you have to think about her mindset in this situation; “I don’t want to be here, I want to be out there”. Therefore, you need to take away or change that desire to be “out there” by making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult.

Continued below…

Related articles:

• H&H forum: find out what H&H readers suggested
• 12 tips for travelling horses safely
• Terrified of towing? Follow this advice to get you from A to B safely

When your mare is on the box and starting to “throw herself round”, take her off the box and immediately put her on the lunge for a few circles, before putting her straight back on the box. Leave her to stand, and as soon as she starts stomping again, repeat the exercise. She will begin to realise that when she comes off the box she has to work, and when she is on the box, she is left to stand and relax. I would recommend that you do this process two or three times on outings where you don’t need to compete and you use them purely as training for this problem, bearing in mind logistics such as parking on grass with enough room to lunge.

I have been given a horse that has a severe case of this particular problem, although his is more fear related. In addition to doing the above exercises, I am experimenting with supressing his senses using earplugs and limiting his vision when he is on the box (much like using blinkers or pacifiers with racehorses). I am doing this in the same way as I do all my training; bit by bit. I will start in a safe environment that my horse is comfortable in, before progressing to the yard, then the horsebox. When horses have high levels of anxiety, they cannot learn, so it takes a long time to get these problems to a manageable level. Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether by taking away a sensory input, you can reduce their anxiety to a level where they can learn and improve — I will keep you posted!

For more information on Jason Webb and his online training base Your Horsemanship, where you can learn a foundation in horse training with online lessons in groundwork, starting, and ridden fundamentals, visit his website

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now