My 3 Toughest Horses, and How I Addressed Each One

In my recent years, three horses stand out to me as some of the toughest nuts to crack. These horses had big, significant behavioral issues that their riders had tried to understand and address, but without much real improvement.

I think what will shock people the most, when they read this, is just how long I spent working with each horse. When you’re dealing with a horse who is nervous, anxious, or has learned behavior, you’re usually talking about months, sometimes over a year, to retrain them. You’re quite literally rewiring them, and retraining a horse will almost always take longer than training a horse from scratch.

With all three horses, I tried to talk the owners/riders through the issues first. That was unsuccessful for a number of reasons - in part because with horses like these, you have to be okay with things going badly for several weeks or even several months because you’re confident in your plan. Chipping away, day after day, when you’re seemingly making no observable improvement takes a hell of a lot of confidence. It also requires a great deal of confidence in the saddle to stick to the plan when you’re in a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable. And finally, part of it is the feeling and timing to switch very quickly the ways that you’re riding depending on the feedback the horse is giving you.

Please click here to read the rest of the article as it appears on the Noelle Floyd Website.

Article by Tik Maynard, as told to Caroline Culbertson