How to Ride a Hot, Sensitive Horse with Laura Graves

In this lesson, Laura will show you how she works with a young, sensitive mare who she classifies as a "hot" ride. Riding hotter horses often feels counterintuitive because of their natural willingness to GO, and many of these types actually wind up less responsive to the leg and more defensive in the mouth as a result.
Key Takeaways:
⭐ Hot horses still need to be trained to the leg aids
⭐ Prioritize rewarding positive behavior and reactions over attacking or punishing negative actions
⭐ Even if a horse is forward-thinking, she may not be quick off the aids
⭐ Does your horse tend to choose "fight" or "flight" when it comes to reacting to a challenging situation? Knowing this helps you understand where to meet your horse during each ride.
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[@arinsam69420]

Sensitive horses can be some of the hardest to understand, but when you do understand them they are incredible. I worked with two sensitive horses and couldn’t wrap my head around them. The third one was a horse I had bought for myself as a jumper. I’ve owned him for 5 months now and he’s difficult but when we have a good day it’s incredible.

[@irinab9470]

We implemented the "wait for me or we U-turn" today with my very forward sensitive boy, and I cannot put into words what an amazing outcome that has given us! I had a horse who was paying attention and holding his rhythm. Thank you SO MUCH Laura! ❤️

[@irinab9470]

She might as well be ny gelding's long lost sister! Looking forward to including these in our riding, wonderfully ridden ❤

[@ingemarijurgensen9296]

No wonder this horse is "hot", she can't see anything going behind the vertical almost all the time. Every time you let go of the reins she relaxes and is not hot/stressed. Why not start their, ride her with lang reins and get her balanced in walk, trott and canter and then engage the hindlegs to get the head up. What you are doing is almost Rollkur and not god horsemanship.

[@AimEmery]

You are holding contact on a horse who is behind the vertical and is trying to escape your contact.

[@trousseau_ideal487]

If the rider doesn’t do anything with horse ducked BTV, then what is the point of the video?

[@Jacqui9]

Why behind the vertical??? Maybe that's why you're not getting what you want. Also, this is not a hot horse...🤔 Hot horses typically are very sensitive to the leg and seat aids...

[@lacouerfairy]

Would love to see this on an actual hot horse. My OTTB mare starts off from the mounting block at a jog. It's a 15 minute struggle of small circles to get her to even come down to the walk.

[@ThatAllatOnceBish]

You should head to the problem horse section 😂 !!

[@riverrunfarm6412]

Do you do a lot of changes of bend and direction on the small circles? My tb calms down quickly if she had to change direction a lot!

[@elemelek14]

Does she have access to paddocks daily? Have you checked her for ulcers? Have you checked the teeth? Do you feed her oats or other "fast energy" feed? There are so many factors. Riding will not fix them

[@donmartinez4448]

I have come to realize in my years of dealing with hot horses that getting these hot horses to release their breath and control their breathing really helps a hot horse to slow down and relax. This poor horse obviously holds her breath. Breathing transitions through body transitions create supple minds. Therefore makes for a relaxed, calm and willing horse. Nice job with the exercises. It can be difficult to reteach a horse that has these issues and is patterned to this behavior that they can slow down. Much of this behavior is created in early training. It takes lots of patience. I am so glad you are showing these exercises to people who have these issues with their horses. It is a true joy for both horse and rider when both are calm,willing and become as one.

[@pedestrianandroid]

@@riverrunfarm6412 that’s a pretty good idea. Specifically for my super charged TBs I use a serpentine using the wall to the quarter line. Starting in walk, then trot and then canter with simple changes. They also don’t do dressage as their day job but as cross training. but it’s because they were never taught to be allowed to relax at a young age. My younger TBs who are sensitive are able to use dressage from age 3-4 have an easier time in life and more potential for competing in dressage. After a couple years of doing that exercise and a very similar area routine in addition to their galloping they learn to know what to expect and can understand that it’s nice to be relaxed. Also very critical to use nearly no aids besides seat and weight.

[@catherineiselin]

Why do you ride her so behind the vertical? All horses with a blocked back want to run away.. this is natural.

[@catherineiselin]

Who trained you?

[@carmenslee6234]

Why is she behind the vertical at the walk?

[@tishagreen713]

Thank you. Well done and useful❤

[@mette1976]

Thank you so much I think could use this also on a slow horse to react?

[@loredelore7286]

She is absolutely fantastic, stunning.

[@vibeskouenborg6842]

This is so SAD- these top riders show how to make horse abuse-. Stress and pain. WAKE UP

[@MMM-tr3cm]

The horse is running because has imbalances and asymmetry in her back and can't coordinate it to the upward balance. Jerking her hindquarters around put stress and pain on SI joint and hocks. Rider shouldn't advocate for such exercise because it's damaging to the horse. Especially for horses with less quality breeding that are generally more stiff and less elastic in their body. Sure horse will eventually learn how to slow down because will connect exercise with discomfort and pain. This horse is compromising a lot of forces in her neck that's why she is behind the vertical most of the time. Of course this is high quality horse breed to move in high amplitudes so she will move nice. Question is how far will she be able to go with this kind of training without developing arthritis changes.

[@anwil58]

Here it is. The "pain" comment.

[@emilyeide5414]

@@anwil58 your point is? Does this horse look at all happy, relaxed and comfortable to you? To me, she looks very stressed, which is highly correlated with some kind of pain. Its not rocket science. The horse does not lie.

[@anwil58]

@emilyeide5414 ..and here you are. The embittered amateur.

[@dianarobbins7259]

Poor horse is WAY overbent!!!

[@sigridackermann-pistecky1139]

mit diesem brutalen Reiten und Wendungen auf der Vorhand im trab! wird jedes Pferd " hot". Das Pferd hat fürchterlichen stress mit dieser harten Reiterin. Sporen und harte Hand und immer wieder hinter der senkrechten, Reitersitz sowie beim Pferd die Nase

[@vibeskouenborg6842]

❤

[@emilyeide5414]

It seems to me this is a huge misinterpretation of the horse by the rider. Horses like this are so often written off as naturally "hot," sensitive, forward, energetic, tempermental, sassy, naughty. In reality, all of the behaviors this mare has are highly correlated in science with stress and often pain. When a horse is chronically stressed like she may be, as upper level horses so often are due to not getting their natural needs met (friends, freedom and forage), they are constantly tense, and hold that tension in different parts of their body. This creates pain and stiffness in the muscles, and bad patterns of moving in their body causes skeletal pain (think joint pain). So now imagine this horse is going through all of this discomfort both mentally and physically, and her rider, who should be her caretaker, writes it off as her being "naughty" and she is just naturally hypersensitive. Pretty sad. We can and need to do better for our horses. Like I have and continue to do, acknowledge my mistakes and adjust to do better for my horse. He deserves nothing less!

[@loumariebel]

excellent advise , lovely horse with a wonderful forward personality , supple elegant rider. I hope very much you will show her more in the classical frame , unfashionable as it may be , with the nose in front of the vertical carrying her head herself even though with so much élan and movement the temptation is not to ride conservatively .

[@uhlysssuh]

Thanks for sharing your wealth of information with us. I'm sure your mare prefers to be ridden this way than constantly told no in the mouth.

[@lauraharrison9893]

Makes me sick to watch

[@DowntownChris]

What's with all that bit? She's constantly behind it. Beautiful mover though.

[@peterzelei4884]

This is absolute idiotism with bunch of false informations and without consistency and people call these as good advices

[@Surfing1709]

Well better u show us what real work is. Show us when it was years ago before it went like it now. Show us how u begin to learn a horse basics. That is work. No u already have fine mechanic. So please show the world the real work.