by Amanda Ines

Created on: January 23, 2011   Last Updated: February 17, 2011

A horse that has become difficult to catch while he is out in a field can be quite a problem and is certainly a behaviour problem and one that can make the owner or person who has to catch him lose their patience easily but this is the last thing that has to be done.  Like other behaviour problems in horses what one needs is a whole load of patience and a lot of time because overcoming this problem cannot be done in a day and entails your regaining the trust of the horse amongst other things. 

A horse that is difficult to catch has become so most likely due to the fact that in the past when he was caught he ended up not being treated very well and so the first thing that has to be done is to disassociate this in his brain.

Go to the field where he is grazing and watch him from outside.  Let him get used to the idea that you are there and that no harm is coming to him because of your presence.  When he continues to graze and seems to appear comfortable and relaxed you may enter the field and begin to walk about but by no means go directly up to your horse, the whole idea is that he has to come to you. 

Bend down and clutch some fresh grass in your hands and stay crouched for a while because you will undoubtedly find that your horse will become curious and wonder what you are doing down on your knees as horses are just as curious as most living beings are!

If you are crouched and with your back to him it will probably be him that will start to approach you and so when this happens stay quite still with the grass that you picked behind your back.  (You can, if there is no abundant grass, have some carrots with you which are always very tempting to horses).

When your horse eventually comes to you, let him take the grass and nuzzle his nose.  Get up very slowly and start to stroke his neck and the whole of his body and then leave him and leave the corral, field or grazing pasture.  This is a very important part of the disassociation therapy in that your horse must no longer think that you and grass or carrots means that he is going to be caught. 

Continue this for quite a few days more and eventually clip the lead onto his head collar while you are stroking him.  Lead him around the corral a little while and then pat him, unclasp the lead from the head collar and let him go back to his grazing.

I would say that after about a week to ten days he will trust you enough to come up to you almost immediately that you enter the corral, he will let you clasp the lead onto his head collar and he will let you lead him out fo the corral and towards the tack room to be tacked up.

Make sure that you try to make his first ride out with you as pleasant, as interesting and as hazard free as possible and to give him a good treat of carrots afterwards.  This will all go to showing him that being caught in a corral leads to good things happening to him and not bad ones.

Of course horses that are difficult to catch are not so difficult to catch when it is around feeding time but if you were to catch him to ride instead of allowing him to feed I think that this would be counter productive in that you would only be adding to his discontent in that you would be depriving him of his feeding time in order to ride him and this would not go down well with him!

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