Chantal hits horse about head

[Lisann]

Believe this was a post parade from 6/25 at HP. Chantal's horse was flipping its head. She hit it multiple times with her whip.

Anyone else see this? I was none too impressed. Seems like some correction with the reins was called for before hitting him near the poll with her crop.

[Tucumcari]

Meh. If Chantal needed to smack one upside the head, it was warranted. I don't know of any chicks who will hit a horse anywhere let alone the head unless it is warranted. I would rather crack one upside the head than have my nose broken...

[ElPrado]

It always amazes me that some people think that race horses are as calm as rental ponies at a carnival. A horse that is trying to injure its rider should be corrected. That qualifies as correction. You have to inform the horse in no uncertain terms that it is overstepping its bounds. A horse can do a great deal of damage, and race horses don't usually have the greatest manners.

[madelyn]

I think you would have to be the person on top of a 1000 fit animal preparing to flip over on you to appreciate the position Chantal might have felt she was in.

A young acquaintance of mine was working as an exercise rider at Trackside; a very fit, very full of himself, horse flipped on her and broke six of her ribs and her pelvis, and crushed a lung. She was in the hospital for nearly two weeks.

As someone else pointed out, these are not "pony ride" horses.

[pfrsue]

I think you would have to be the person on top of a 1000 fit animal preparing to flip over on you to appreciate the position Chantal might have felt she was in.

A young acquaintance of mine was working as an exercise rider at Trackside; a very fit, very full of himself, horse flipped on her and broke six of her ribs and her pelvis, and crushed a lung. She was in the hospital for nearly two weeks.

Exactly. I have a permanent dent in my right leg from a horse flipping over on me. (The cantle of a dressage saddle can do an impressive amount of damage when it has a thousand pounds of falling Shire cross mare behind it!)

Dangerous misbehavior has to be stopped cold, or people can be seriously hurt very quickly.

[ElPrado]

Exactly. What was Chantal supposed to do? Get off and give the horse a kiss on the left nostril?

[Bast]

It always amazes me that some people think that race horses are as calm as rental ponies at a carnival. A horse that is trying to injure its rider should be corrected. That qualifies as correction. You have to inform the horse in no uncertain terms that it is overstepping its bounds. A horse can do a great deal of damage, and race horses don't usually have the greatest manners.

People who have no first person experience of horses have no understanding of their nature.

They see racehorses on tv behaving themselves 99% of the time, going into starting gates, coming out (mostly) straight, and running where they are supposed to be running, and it all looks on the house screen like a choreographed ballet. It isn't. Everything the horses are doing had to be taught to them, reinforced, and then asked from them in practice; none of it is natural behavior.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Exactly. What was Chantal supposed to do? Get off and give the horse a kiss on the left nostril?

[Lisann]

Umm, the horse wasn't attempting to flip over. It was merely tossing/flipping its head and walking quite calmly in the post parade.

Doesn't sound like any of you actually saw this incident.

[ElPrado]

Flipping its head is not walking calmly.

[mini's mom]

years ago I was retraining a maryland bred tb for a client. The gelding was huge and loved to rear and spin to the left when he was asked to do something, like move forward. So I tried a running martingale with a hunting breast plate & that did not stop the b ehavior. The horse was to the point of being dangerous as he loved to flip himself. So the third time he did it, I grabbed a hunk of mane, sat tight & womped him off the poll with the butt end of a jumping bat & that ended any and all rearing. He shocked himself, fell to his knees a little & then shook. I think he thught that he hit his head on something & when horses do that they usually stop the rearing & spinning. This was learned behavior from a training experience. After that I got him going well & the people sold him for $5,000 as a show hunter. He was also very smart & needed something to occupy his brain - never got paid for that one & the next time the people asked me to retrain one of her husband's wrecks from the track & declined. Broken bones take to long to heal!

[ElPrado]

Also, a race horse has a mild snaffle bit. The amount of correction possible isn't much. You don't want to teach the horse to slow down or stop doing something with the bit, it has been taught to pull against the bit in race training. A race horse is not a pleasure horse and requires extensive retraining to be a pleasure horse.
Flipping its head is the beginning of dangerous behavior. It gets worse over time. Stopping it before it gets worse is the correct thing to do.

[madelyn]

Flipping his head is a sign of more to come. The next thing the front feet are popping up off the ground and before you know it you are scraping the sky.

[Lucy]

It's exactly as Madelyn says, the head tossing is a red flag to a rider. Outward appearances can deceive - the walk may have looked calm, but the rider would be able to feel the horse preparing to do something stupid, especially in a thin racing saddle. You can feel the muscles in their back tense up, and a slight hesitation moving forward.

I've been flipped on too and it's no fun (luckily, it was a deep sand surface and I escaped with bruises). The horse in question was corrected using the method mini's mom mentioned - when the horse starts to go up, blammo between the ears. Bleeding heart teenage softie that I was, I'd been hesitant to do it, but damned if it didn't work.

One of my trainers at school mentioned smashing an egg between their ears when they go up. Requires less force, but definitely makes more mess (and who rides around carrying eggs?).

[karenkarenn]

Hey guys
First of all, if you go back to the Stewards reports, Chantall has been told time and time again to not be so aggressive with her mounts and to start to think more clearly about her riding.
Secondly, There is a reason why there are Stewards involved in mostly everything a jockey does on a horse because they see everything that goes around the track, "patrol Judges" too.
Thirdly, we can not imagine why the horses head was held high, he or she could have mouth issues, teeth that needed to be floated, ect.
I did see what Lisann was talking about, it did look rough, esp since the sport is having a nasty viewed through others that don't have horses ( with the jockey kicking the horse in the starting gate and with Bible Camp and the 39 counts of animal neglect).
We don't know what the trainers instructions where for that horse. Sooo no one here can say that the situation 'Could' have been dangerous or not. If you really want to know what for the Stewards to submit their report for that day and go from there.
And this isn't the post about how to correct head carriage because there could be SEVERAL things wrong with a horse that does that. We don't know and they only people that truly know is the trainer, the rider and if the stewards get involved.
Karen