I've been showing Lego for fun in halter just for him to get ring experience. He is not a halter horse, and I know it. I happen to like showing halter, and although I know we aren't going to be winning much, I like to play around with it.

Here's my problem, my now 3 year old gelding is super duper laid back. He knows how to set up, but I can never ever get his ears. Bags are just a possible thing for eating for him, and the whip is for waving around (he has taken the whip from me, as if to say "you set up!"). He doesn't trot really nicely either, he has a huge trot, which I can't show really well in the first place, but he just trots flat with no animation (until we head towards the out gate of course).

And, any advice on how to properly condition his hind end to get a flatter look to it?

Thanks

Anyone? Here's a picture of him at the futurity last year for an example of how excitable he is...Also, still looking for ideas to build up his hind end. I'm not sure if it's just a growth thing or what, but he croup has gotten steeper even with work. His neck is looking much better than it did in the photo, hind end is worse though.

He looks like a nice healthy growing gawky 2yr old! General conditioning will help alot- Hills and light lunging over cavelletis can help the backend especially on a young horse.

I will probably be flamed for this suggestion, but your gelding is completely ignoring you!! You need to have another person help you by using/smacking another whip very strongly on your gelding's rear end at the exact same time that you give your gelding any command to move out while training him for halter.

For conditioning, I recommend using a surcingle with a crupper attached to it to long-rein your gelding. Wrap the crupper in toweling and attach it just a slightly bit short to the surcingle force your gelding's tail up. Work your gelding in very deep sand/arena footing at a long, slow trot with lots of stops and starts. You can also pony your gelding up and down hills at a long, slow trot. You can also add some light weight action chains to your gelding's back feet to get him to pick up his back feet more.

Lorna G. Kirby, PE

Selket, I have the same problem waking my gelding up as he hates halter and I also can't get the look like the pros. But I'm also not willing to do what it takes to get that look. However, in Delgados thread he talks about getting them to back up when you move towards them by jiggling the lead. This gets them awake and paying attention to you. It also hollows the back (exactly the opposite of what we want u/s) as their head is to be lifted in the air; gets the neck to go up rather than forward. But he's much better at explaining it than I so if I were you I'd go back thru that thread and give it a try. Good luck! As you horse matures and gets more fit the hind end will improve. Just be careful to not over- do or you will cause yourself problems down the road with lameness issues.

TREATS???? Desi know if her ears stay up when my hand is out she gets a treat. I know people who teach there horses to eat pepermints and the crinkle of the celephan always get the ears up and the eyes forcused. Pain is usally not a good anwer to a quite horse,or any horse -it has the oppisit effect that you want. Mer

That is exactly what we use; peppermints. Yes, our horse is to the point that just the sound of the wrapper gets his attention. But "the look" is more than ears; it is an elevated neck, giving at the poll with ears. I try my best to get the neck at the proper spot then use the treats for the final ears but its still not the tight look the BNTs get. But oh well, at least my horse is not being abused. Not that ALL BNTs are abusive but it is my opinion that MANY are.

I'll go reread Del's thread, I've used his methods in a lot of what I've done with Lego, I started before I found this forum with similar techniques as well.

As far as cookies go...Lego just gets this super duper relaxed and stupid look on his face. When the ears go sideways and his tongue sticks out. I can try getting him to associate a crinkle with treats though, as it is, I have put a plastic bag on his head (to prove a point to someone who told me to bag him) and what does he do? Plays with it...

I think he's telling you he wants to do trail. I think it sounds like a fun thing to try. It looks awfully hard tho; all those lead changes. But at least he's unflappable. PLease, please take him to some open shows to show the other breeds that not all arabs are nuts!

Maybe he'll have an open trail career (where I can show in english tack) along with being my hunter.

He has won 2nd out of 10 in a walk-trot trail class we did for fun, that was his 15th ride under saddle. Crazy halter-bred Arab