Sometimes the farrier is confronted with a new horse that is averse to being handled, and it is important to be able to tell whether the horse is evasive because it is afraid and nervous or independent and spoiled.

Jennifer Horn, a farrier in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., says that whenever she has a new client or a client with a new horse, she asks about the experiences the client has had with that horse.

“The words clients use in describing the horse’s behavior and their experiences with the horse can give clues, and most of the time people are pretty honest about this,” she says. “You need to carefully listen to them and pick up on key words regarding the horse’s behavior, how it gets along with other horses in the herd, whether it tends to be scared and skittish, etc.”

Approach Quietly

Even if the horse doesn’t seem scared or timid, Horn’s approach to new horses is to come toward them quietly, in a subtle way.

“I offer a hand to let them smell me on their own terms, and I touch them,” she says. “A lot depends on a person’s aura and what we put out as body language and vibes. We need to control what we project. I’ve been around some horses that are questionable or dangerous, and if I get tense and uptight, this escalates the horse’s nervousness. They pick up on this very quickly.”

Paul Goodness, chief of Farrier Ser­vices at Virginia Tech’s Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va., says a fearful horse usually falls into one of two categories. The horse might be young and inexperienced (or sometimes older and neglected and still inexperienced) and doesn’t understand what you are asking it to do.

“The other category is the horse that is nervous and upset because he’s in a different environment,” he says.

When horses go to his facility for hoof care, it’s a new environment/new experience for them and they are often distracted — looking around for a way out, or looking for another horse for moral support.

“They are not focused on what we are doing — they never have both eyes and ears on you,” Goodness says.

They are looking at everything else, he says. They’re worried about what’s going on around them, very distracted and unsure.

“If you observe these horses, you can sense this,” Goodness says. “When you ask them to pick up a foot, inexperienced horses might resist a little, mainly because they don’t know what you want. If they pull away, they tend to move away from you, as opposed to a horse that’s not afraid and just being uncooperative, not liking what you are doing with it. It tends to stand its ground and you have to pull its leg up.”

The fearful horse might take a swat at you as it moves away, but it’s more an act of self-defense — as it might do to protect itself from a predator — rather than aggression. This is part of the horse’s natural fight-or-flight reaction to something it’s afraid of and the farrier needs to be patient with it rather than punish.

“With horses that are fearful,” he explains, “we slow down and take baby steps.”

It takes a lot of positive reinforcement, being consistent and gently firm in showing this horse the necessary boundaries.

“You need to explain the boundary so it knows where that zone is, and where it can be safe if it behaves a certain way — and understands what is acceptable behavior and what is not,” says Goodness, noting that if the horse learns it can be comfortable within that boundary, it loses its fear and gains respect and trust.

Horn emphasizes that staying close to a horse is important for safety. Sometimes the farther away you are, the more likely you’ll get a serious kick. She always tries to keep skittish, sensitive horses in whatever environment they are most comfortable in, even if it means doing the feet in a stall or paddock.

“I don’t like to put skittish horses in a new environment,” she says, “and then ask them to stay focused on me when they are trying to assess everything around them in that new environment.”

It might be sensory overload and more than they can comfortably handle.

“It sometimes helps if the client stands there and rubs the horse’s chest or poll, or neck or cheek — whatever helps that horse relax,” Horn says. “Some just need more assurance. Even if the client is talking baby talk, this may help that particular horse stay calm.”

A lot depends on the horse and why it is moving around.

“With some, if you reprimand them, they straighten up and stand still,” Horn says. “With others, the same reprimand may make them more fearful. You have to read them correctly to know which way to deal with them.”

She suggests watching their eyes and body language. Their eyes will tell you a lot. Our body language is how they read us, and their body language is how we read them. A horse’s eyes can tell you whether it’s relaxed or scared.

The Inexperienced Scared Horse

When working with young horses or babies, it helps to make a lot of comfortable contact.

“I don’t want to be aggressive and arm-wrestle them, but when I’m asking for a leg, I want them to know they can trust me,” Horn says. “They need to know I have their leg, and it’s safe; I am not going to suddenly drop it. When I’m done working on the foot, I’ll put it down gently.”

After finishing a foot, she might work with it a little more, tapping around the foot with the hoof pick to get them used to what will happen in their future. Horn teaches the owner how to get a nervous youngster more at ease with what the farrier will do.

“We need to be able to pull a foot forward and dress it, and with young horses, I gently move the leg into all the positions I’ll need them to be in at some point,” she explains. “I want them to realize they can be comfortable with this. When I am finished, I don’t just let the foot fall to the ground. I keep hold of it and follow it down, so they are never alarmed with unexpected sudden actions.”

With a young horse, you are setting the stage for future success, to prevent any problems down the road.

“You are either teaching them something beneficial or un-teaching them in everything you do,” Horn says. “If you can get the youngster past his suspicions or fears, you’ve made progress.”

Sometimes, having a companion nearby will help settle a nervous, scared horse. Being a herd animal, a lone horse might be uneasy by itself. Having its buddy there can help keep it calm, especially if the buddy is mellow and at ease with being there, serving as a good role model.

Choosing a good environment is important — a comfortable place for that horse, but not a huge amount of room where it constantly can be trying to move away from you.

“On the other hand, I try not to crowd them in a space that’s too small where they might feel trapped,” Horn says. “There’s a happy medium where they feel at ease. You want a quiet environment without a lot of traffic or sensory stimuli — no dogs or anything else moving around that might heighten their anxiety. If there is too much going on, this will scare a nervous horse.”

With young ones, the earlier you introduce them to having their feet handled, the better. This is the ideal time, when they are still open to learning, and they’re not bigger and stronger than you are.

“I am happy to work on young horses for their first trimming until they get to be about yearling age,” Goodness says. “I work on young racehorses that tend to be flighty, but the ones I get to work on as babies are easy. We might start on some as young as 10 to 30 days of age if they have problems, then trim them every 2 or 3 weeks. By the time they are 18 months old, they stand as nicely as an 18-year-old horse.”

It’s more difficult starting with an older horse, such as one that’s been neglected and unhandled out in the field. Some horses are wary and suspicious. Going slow and easy with the inexperienced horse the first time it’s trimmed or shod will usually set things up for success and a good working relationship. If a farrier misreads the horse, however, and starts beating on it, this will make it much harder to handle that horse the next time.

“You might have to take things a little bit at a time,” Goodness says. “It might take several sessions for the horse to fully understand, but if you move slowly and don’t get upset, you make good progress.”

The horse picks up on your feelings. If you get impatient or angry, it loses any trust you were cultivating and becomes fearful and defensive again.

Most inexperienced, fearful horses come around pretty quickly if given a chance. They just don’t know what you want and are fairly easy to get settled down compared with a horse that already has its mind set on resistance. With those, you might find it has the same bad attitude months later. You can usually tell that this horse isn’t scared; it is testing you.

Jennifer Horn tries to choose an environment that the horse is comfortable in to ease its state of mind and enhance her safety. “You want a quiet environment without a lot of traffic and sensory stimuli,” she says.

Is it Pain?

Horn says a horse often can be misread if a farrier is trying to work under it and the horse is moving away or bouncing around.

“It is not necessarily that the horse is scared or being defensive,” she says. “Often it’s a pain issue — soreness or stiffness. This can be misread as bad behavior or skittishness.”

Goodness sometimes sees horses that become fearful or untrusting because of pain.

“It might be an arthritic hock or a bad stifle, and the horse is afraid that when you pick up that foot, his leg will hurt,” he says. “It’s not necessarily because a farrier got after him, but it remembers the pain from when its foot was worked on in that position, and it resists having it picked up.”

These horses are fairly easy to distinguish from one that’s afraid.

“They are relaxed instead of nervous, and very cooperative about having the other three legs picked up until you get to that fourth corner,” he says. “Then suddenly the horse is jumping away from you or taking a swing at you, not wanting you working on that right hind foot. When you start to go for that one, it might pick up its left hind instead, and offer it to you in hopes you’ll work on it rather than the one that causes pain.”

Unfortunately, this action is sometimes misinterpreted and the farrier gets after the horse for misbehaving. A horse with a pain issue can readily develop a behavioral problem because the farrier doesn’t read it correctly.

“There are many maladies that might make a horse difficult to shoe, like a horse with shivers,” Goodness says. “You pick up a hind leg and the muscles spasm. That’s a situation where it has to become a trusting bond between the farrier and the horse. You understand that it can’t control its leg; it’s not trying to be uncooperative. Yet in that situation, we often see horses that are scared. They think we’ll get after them for having a muscle spasm.”

A pain issue or abnormality like shivers, if the horse has been harshly reprimanded, can be complicated to deal with, to get the horse settled and back to relaxing again.

“We try to be very gentle, very consistent and if they take a swing or two at us, we patiently remind them that they do have to try a little bit and help us out,” he says. “We try to be understanding; we know it hurts, but we ask the horse to bear with us and hold that foot up, even if it’s briefly. We do a little bit at a time.”

Some issues can be helped with an appropriate anti-inflammatory drug, such as Phenylbutazone (bute) or Banamine, so the horse won’t be feeling so much pain.

“Then it knows we are not going to hurt it or push it too far, and it begins to trust us again,” Goodness says. “We can eventually win back its favor.”

Should these Horses be Sedated?

Unfortunately, when farriers have a busy schedule and are confronted with an uncooperative horse that might take a lot of time (even if it’s just a nervous, insecure and inexperienced horse), they tend to go right to the pharmacy for sedation.

Most farriers don’t want to take time to try to get the horse over its fears. Yet, if it’s a client with a horse they’ll be working with in the future, it pays to take a little extra time on the first session to ensure that the future will go better with that horse.

“This is part of being a more rounded horseman, rather than just a farrier that only takes care of the feet,” Goodness says. “You need to be able to deal with the whole horse and the horse’s attitude, and not just the shoeing part.”

When dealing with pain issues, Goodness says appropriate medications are used with an eye toward decreasing the potency as the horse gains trust in them. With some horses, however, behavioral issues need to be addressed and the owner should get help from a trainer — even if it’s just a really scared horse.

“We don’t hesitate to suggest this after we understand what’s going on with a certain horse,” he says. “We can’t do it ourselves. In our busy situation, our only tool is the pharmacy. Maybe when I become semi-retired, I might have time to help rehabilitate a horse with behavioral issues, but with our schedule here, use of drugs is mainly how we deal with uncooperative horses with a bad attitude. We sedate them and might suggest that the owner find a trainer or another farrier/trainer combination. There are so many ‘nice’ horses that we can help that we don’t have much time for a bad one.”

Dealing with Behavioral Issues

Some horses just aren’t worth the risk that they pose. When Goodness was part of a large group practice, the farriers he worked with thought they should put up a sign under their name, stating, “If they don’t want to be shod, we don’t want to shoe them.” In his area, there are so many nice horses to work with that most farriers prefer to not risk getting hurt or having to deal with bad ones.

Some farriers feel there should be more attention given to equine behavior and horse handling in today’s shoeing schools.

“When I was going through school during the mid-1970s, we were taught a bunch of rope tricks and how to tie horses up in knots,” Goodness says, noting that was the traditional way to restrain a bad horse, before the advent of sedatives and tranquilizers. “Today, however, we’d never consider using ropes and hobbles. These practices have their own risks and drawbacks. Today, we try to talk to the horse and communicate a little better.”

It always pays to try to read that horse correctly and plan accordingly, seeking to gain its trust and rapport.

January/February 2019 Issue Contents