“My horse rears when it’s napping - what can I do?”

It was a question I was asked recently and thought it would be a good idea to discuss it.

First though, let’s clarify what napping is for those of you unfamiliar with the term.

Editor’s note: I assumed napping meant snoozing, and said to Katie “big surprise - they are probably startling their horse…” —- SARAH

Napping is when your horse is reluctant or refusing to move forward in the direction your want it to go. It is different to spooking, which is when a horse is genuinely scared, startled and trying to bolt reactively.

Napping, and then rearing during these periods, is often put down to bad behaviour. But let’s look a little deeper at the cause, and why they may rear as a response to your actions.

FIRST DO NO HARM

At Equestrian Movement, our first rule of thumb in working with our horse is first do no harm.

So before you go down the path of training and correcting ANY behaviour, rule out all possible reasons for your horse doing this.

• Pain, muscle and gastrointestinal,

• Saddle doesn’t fit/pinches,

• Rubs or galls from the girth or saddle,

• Old injuries etc.

If you know for certain your horse is rearing to get out of work then we can consider how to work with them. 

REARING TO GET OUT OF WORK

Rearing without a good reason usually starts because they used to have a good reason and it went away, or they are lacking confidence. Once they establish that this behaviour gets what they want (i.e. no more work), they will continue it.

So they may rear because you are walking them away from the stable. If you were to get off take them back to the stable and feed them, they will learn that if they rear you get off, turn them out and feed them.

It is ok if you get off but make sure that if you get off the work continues. So if you are leading them away from the barn and they rear to get you to take them back to the barn, you can dismount but continue leading them away from the barn on the ground and work them through the argument on the ground until you get a yes and then remount. Not until they are walking sweetly away from the barn without argument (whether on the ground or in the saddle) do you turn them back toward the barn and feed and turn out. 

JAMMED SHOULDERS

Another reason why horses can just stop and rear is because they are jammed through the shoulders. Basically their neck, chest, shoulders or back get tight and pull resulting in them feeling like the only option they have is to go up.

This horse needs a lot of topline conditioning to maintain forward thought and forward while being ridden. Canter transitions and canter poles can really help. It most often comes up as the horse is learning to develop throughness in a working frame. So the hindquarters are coming under and engaging but they don’t know how to extend through the shoulder to move their forehand out of the road and they rear. 

Using shoulder mobilising exercises like turn on the hind quarters, leg yield and shoulder fore in combination with teaching them how to transfer their weight onto the haunches and maintain forwardness all help with teaching them how to use their body so they don’t feel jammed. 

If at any stage you feel uncomfortable or unsafe with your horse we recommend you work with a professional trainer to help.