Circle P QH

How Can Colic Be Prevented? Part 3 of a 4 Part Series

2007-01-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

How Can Colic Be Prevented?

There is no definite solution that will eliminate the possibility of colic for our horses. But what we can do is to create an environment which will minimize the risk for our equine partners.

Let’s look at the causes and figure out how to mitigate each one.

Dehydration:

This is not only the most common cause but also the easiest to mitigate. Make sure that your horses have plenty of clean water available at all times. Sounds simple, right? Well it’s not as simple as it might seem. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.” That is oh, so true. So we have to make the water as attractive to our horses as possible.

If your horse is in the stall, make sure the bucket is always available and it is clean. Stall buckets should be dumped out every day and refilled. Depending on how much of a messy eater your horse is it may also need to be scrubbed every day. My Welsh pony constantly dunks his hay, whether I wet the hay first or not, so I have to scrub his bucket every day. My QH mare will not drink from a bucket in the stall and prefers to drink from a trough outside so her water is constantly covered with a scum of dust from the air, the bedding, the hay, whatever – we all know that barns are dusty places. Her bucket needs to be dumped and refilled but usually swishing the water around before it gets dumped will be enough to clean her bucket.

There are a million ways your horse can contaminate its bucket so keeping it clean is a problem that must be addressed. At the bare minimum, a stall bucket needs to be dumped and refilled once daily and scrubbed weekly. Barn workers will often resist this chore, as it is certainly a time consuming task – (on our farm with around 40 horses in stalls, it can be very time consuming indeed!) but in a colic avoidance mode, it is critical.

There is also the question of quantity. If you don’t have automatic waterers, then you need to keep track during the day to make sure that each horse has water all day. If you have a horse that drinks a lot of water, make sure that horse has 2 or 3 buckets in the stall and that each one is clean and full every day.

If you do have automatic waterers, make sure you activate each one every day and clean out the reservoir in each stall. Even in the cleanest barn, those little bowls that the horse actually drinks from will become at best dusty and at worst contaminated.

In winter, the lines to the waterers can freeze so they need to be checked too. It is often better to turn off the water to the waterers and install buckets in each stall during the coldest weather. But we must also be careful to make sure that the buckets don’t freeze in the stall too. Heated buckets help but not everyone can afford either the buckets or the electricity to run them, especially in a large barn. Heated buckets should also be checked daily to ensure that the insulation isn’t worn, presenting the risk of electrocution.

The alternative to heated buckets is to monitor the buckets and waterers throughout the day and especially last thing at night. In a cold barn, water will freeze at night in the cold regions. Fortunately horses will also be at rest at night so their need for water intake is also reduced, but clearing ice and topping up buckets last thing at night is a very valuable activity.

So let’s think about the opposite side of the equation. Living in Pennsylvania, I get both freezing nights in winter and hot, humid days and nights in summer.

Horses sweat. That is a fact of equine life. In the summer, working the horses causes them to lose water in the form of sweat. Working a horse with a thick winter coat will also cause them to lose that valuable water. Apart from ensuring that the horse has plenty of fresh water available, if your horse has been sweating, make sure you add electrolytes to his water to support his system in making best use of that water to rehydrate the cells.

You can buy electrolytes in any tack or feed store and you can also provide a salt and/or mineral block for free choice usage in the stall or the field. And talking of fields, what should we do for the horse that is turned out?

The same principles apply in the field as for in the stall – plenty of clean, fresh water at all times.

Field water tubs need not be dumped out every day, but they should be checked several times each day. If the water becomes contaminated, dump it out, scrub the tub and start all over again.

Even if the water is clear, the tub needs to be dumped and scrubbed at least weekly. My mare contracted Potomac Horse Fever when she was in New York State and I believe that it was caused by mosquito larvae in the water tub. Those little critters appear from nowhere and what was perfectly good water this morning may be teeming with life this afternoon, particularly in warm areas. Most horses won’t drink the contaminated water, but if they are really thirsty (remember, my mare doesn’t drink in her stall but waits until she gets turned out to drink from the field tub) they will take a sip or two from the dirty water.

For the most part, the horses will leave the dirty water alone, but that is the start of the cycle to cause colic – without water, that food they are nibbling will not be able to pass through the gut and colic is just waiting to happen.

Rapid Change in Diet:

When we move our horses from one location to another, many horse owners are pretty good about making sure that they switch from the feed at the old location to the new feed in a gradual manner, but let’s just recap on that.

My 12% protein feed may be very different from your 12% fat feed ration. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is enough to upset the delicate equine digestive balance. Unless you are going to go through the guaranteed analysis labels on each of the different feeds
And ensure that the old and the new food is EXACTLY the same, you must assume that it isn’t. When you move your horse, take at least one bag of the old feed with you. If the farm you are at won’t sell you a bag, go to the feed store yourself and buy a bag. It may be an expensive way to buy feed, one bag at a time, but it is surely less expensive that the vet fees for colic to the risk to your horse’s life.

At the new farm, provide explicit, written instructions on how to transition from the old food to the new. It will depend on how much food your horse gets, but a rough guide is to replace 1/8th of the feed ration with the new feed increasing the amount, an 1/8th at a time, every 3 days. So for example, my Welsh gets a half scoop at each meal. Look at the chart below for how I would change his feed:

Days 1 though 4: 1 scoop old feed / No new feed
Days 5 though 8: 7/8 scoop old feed / 1/8 scoop new feed
Days 9 though 11: 3/4 scoop old feed / 1/4 scoop new feed
Days 12 through 14: 5/8 scoop old feed / 3/8 scoop new feed
Days 15 through 17: 1/2 scoop old feed / 1/2 scoop new feed
Days 18 through 20: 3/8 scoop old feed / 5/8 scoop new feed
Days 21 through 24: 1/4 scoop old feed / 3/4 scoop new feed
Days 25 through 27: 1/8 scoop old feed / 7/8 scoop new feed
Day 27 onwards: No old feed / 1 scoop new feed

The stress of relocating can also cause colic so don’t mess with the food until the horse has had a chance to relax in his new home. For the 1st 4 days he gets exactly the same as he got at the previous home.

Of course, this raises the question of what is a scoop? Some scoops will hold twice as much as others. Some farms use a coffee can. The size of a scoop is as varied as there are farms out there. Before you move your horse, take a pair of kitchen scales to the barn and weigh a scoop of your horse’s feed. Make sure you use the same feed your horse is being fed – sweet feed weighs more than pellet because of the molasses, for example. Then tell your new barn manager what weight of food your horse gets. Do not leave this to chance. I was once nearly killed by a mare that went ballistic on my out on the trail and I found out afterwards that the farm was feeding this highly strung, very volatile thoroughbred mare 3 pounds of oats – pure energy – without my knowledge!

The only way to be sure your horse is getting the same amount of food is to measure it by weight. If your barn owner looks at you cross-eyed when you mention the weight, take the same kitchen scales and weigh the content of the scoop at the new barn. Then you can make the calculation and give the barn owner the equivalent in scoops.

Also look at the major crude analysis numbers on the new and old feeds. If your horse is used to 12% protein and 10% fat, a diet of 10% protein and 12% fat will not cause him to colic if introduced over time, but it might have an impact on his weight, so keep an eye on that and be prepared to up the amount of food if necessary.

Then of course, we have the case of the midnight raider!

My Welsh Pony definitely comes into this category. Because the Welsh are pretty sturdy animals, he is in more danger from founder than colic due to this but colic is still a possibility.

Mirage is a very resourceful little man. He can open a stall door; he can open a man door; he can disconnect bungee cords; in fact he can circumvent most deterrents in his quest for food or entertainment. So how do I deal with the risk of him getting out, letting others out and getting into the feed store?

The one thing that Mirage has not yet conquered is a chain with a scissor snap; a very heavy duty chain with a strong scissor snap. The best way to prevent him getting into the feed is to make sure he doesn’t get out of his stall in the first place. I have a chain with 1.25 inch links and a 1.5 inch scissor snap screwed to his stall door. Mirage’s stall happens to be made of thick planks of wood with gaps above and below them and they are screwed into a post that is about 10 inches in diameter. Consequently I can pass the chain around through the gaps and fasten the snap to the 1.25 inch screw eye which is in the post. However, if you don’t have these ready made gaps, drill a hole though the door and the wall, at least 8 inches from the edge and large enough to pass the chain and snap through. If the boards at these points are not very thick, reinforce it by screwing a thick plank to the wall and door and drill through both thicknesses at the same time.

So what happens when the barn help forgets to fasten the chain and Mirage manages to escape anyway? I work on the theory that if Mirage can think it, he can do it. So the feed bins are locked away in a Rubbermaid free standing closet that is closed with a hasp and padlock.

Of course the padlock may not be fastened because the barn help forgot this too. In that case I have the third fail safe that I keep the actual feed in plastic 30 gallon bins with wheels and with the handles that lock over the top of the lid. If the help remembers, the handles are held together with short, strong bungee cords. This set up has several advantages. Firstly, because they are on wheels, it is harder for Mirage to get any leverage on them. As he applies pressure, the bin scoots away from him. The bins a re plastic so they can take quite a bashing before they break so if he stomps on them in temper, a little may come out as the bin flexes but not enough to cause him harm. The bungee cords are stretched so tight because they are short it is hard for him to unhook them. So far, since adopting this method, Mirage has been denied his midnight munchies.

Weather:

Obviously we cannot prevent changes in the weather. Wherever you live the seasons come and go and the barometric pressure changes. But as responsible horse owners we need to be aware of any significant changes in that pressure. The old style farmers would live their lives by the weather, reading the signs to determine what was going on. These days we have the advantage of the TV and the internet and the comprehensive weather coverage that they provide. We just need to take more notice of those warning signs.

If you see a high or low front coming in, the barometric pressure is going to change; time to start preparing against a possible colic.

The best protection for the horse is, as always the availability of the fresh water, but in addition to that, I like to give the horse an extra helping hand by preparing a bran mash for them. A ran mash is just what it says; bran mushed up into a gooey mess. The big advantage to a bran mash is that it has not calorific value as it is 90% fiber so passes through the gut really quickly so it keeps everything moving along.

It will also provide an additional source of water for your horse so that if they are not drinking enough, the water in the mash will help to keep them hydrated.

Some people will add salt to the mash to assist with water retention, but I don’t do that. However, for my picky eaters I will add some molasses or crushed up star mints to make it more inviting. I will give the mash within 12 hours of the arrival of the front, so if the front is due to arrive on Tuesday morning I will feed the mash on Monday evening; If it is due to arrive on Tuesday evening, I will feed the mash on Tuesday morning.

If you have children at the barn, you will probably have no shortage of volunteers to mix up the mash – somehow it is something that children love to do.

Ulcers:

If your horse has ulcers, medication is the primary solution. Do not mess around with ulcers; they are dangerous and can cause your horse a very painful death.

If your horse colics and you can’t figure out why, the chances are that he has ulcers. The only way to be sure is to have the scoped. The vet will come and put a tube into the gut with a camera and take a look to see if any ulcers are present.

The vet may see some old scarring or some inflamed spots that have not yet ulcerated. For conditions such as these as well as for perfectly healthy guts, there is a product called Ulcergard® from Merial limited. Ulcergard® is a preventative medication and can be used on healthy guts to keep them healthy. If your horse actually has ulcers, however, Merial also make a product called Gastrogard® I’m pretty sure that you can buy Ulcergard® over the counter but Gastrogard® will require a prescription from your vet.

I’m not here to sell you either of these products and there are other products on the market, but these 2 are the best I have found and are the industry standard. One thing I would point out is that Gastrogard® is basically Ulcergard® at 4 times the strength; you use a ¼ tube per day of Ulcergard® and 1 tube per day of Gastrogard®. There is no difference in price between the products so if you want to do this without a prescription, then this is the way to go. However, DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR HORSE”S DIGESTIVE SYSTEM WITHOUT THE GUIDANCE OF A VET! Make sure your horse has ulcers before administering the high dose of the medication. Assuming the presence of ulcers and treating ulcers that don’t exist can be fatal!

Stop Press:
I will just add one additional preventative here that has just come to my attention - Teeth! We all overlook the importance of dental health in our horses until they cause a problem. If our horse cannot grind its food properly, that food will not pass through the digestive tract properly. And as we have been discussing, failure to pass through the system is what causes colic. Think about it - we have all at some point in time, gobbled our food and not chewed it properly. Doesn't that send us reaching for the Mylanta? If bad chewing does that to our robust digestive systems, it stands to reason that the much more delicate system of the horse will respond in like fashion.

The preventative for the inability to grind the food is to have the horse’s teeth checked regularly by an equine dentist. Oh yes, I know, I can hear everyone saying “But I have their teeth floated every year!”

Floating is a good idea and I equate it to having the hygienist polish my teeth every six months. But floating cannot replace the care and treatment from an equine dentist. During the course of their schooling; through all the years that a DVM spends in school, they have just one class in dentistry. Would you trust your own dental health to a person who had attended one class in the subject? I know I wouldn’t.

A vet will use one tool to float the teeth and take down the hooks as much as the tool will allow. A dentist will use anything from 6 to 10 different tools and will address each face of each tooth to make sure that the mouth can operate at maximum efficiency.

If possible use a dentist that is a member of the International Association of Equine Dentistry (I.A.E.D.) to ensure that you are getting a practitioner that subscribes to the internationally accepted processes.

Don’t wait for colic to happen. Take steps to beat it to the punch. It’s not easy but it is possible.

Stand by for the next and last article in this series – How to diagnose and treat colic.

What Can Cause Colic? Part 1 of a 4 part series

2007-01-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

In the previous article we established that colic is caused by the food failing to move through the gut and continuing to ferment causing gas. So why would that food stop moving?

Probably most the prevalent cause of colic is dehydration. Many people would argue that dehydration is a by-product of colic, but in my experience of more than 40 years, the quickest way to induce colic in a horse is to reduce their water intake. Pretty much without exception a horse with severe colic will be dehydrated and is that because the digestive system has shut down or is that the reason the digestive system has shut down? Let’s think about this logically.

As the food moves through the gut it gets squished along by the contracting muscles and is mixed in with the digestive juices produced by the system. Think about trying to squeeze the meat through the skin of a sausage. When the sausage is fresh and the meat is moist it can be moved along fairly easily. Now let’s cut the sausage in half and put it in the refrigerator without wrapping it. The exposed end of that meat will dry out and become hard. Now when you try to move it along by squeezing, the chances are it will not move. The same principle applies to our horse’s gut when there is not enough water present to keep the food content moist.

Another common cause of colic is a rapid change in diet. Think back a couple of weeks to Thanksgiving. Let’s be honest, most of us overindulge during any major holiday and we all sit (or lie) around after the sumptuous meal regretting how much we consumed. The reasons for our discomfort are twofold – we eat far too much and we eat food that is far richer than we are used to.

Because we feed our horses food that is not the same as they would eat in the wild and therefore is not what their systems were designed to digest, changing either quantity or type of the food is likely to lead the same condition as us after the holiday banquet. So when we move our horses to a different barn or we find out that there is a “better” feed available we rush to do better for our horses and switch them over to the new food. These sudden changes in food can cause a shock to the digestive system and can result in a temporary slow down resulting in - - - Colic!

Similarly, when our equine friend breaks out of his stall during the night and just happens to find himself with his head in the feed bin, he is likely to eat far more than he would normally eat. Then he gets the holiday bloating and the same digestive slow down and the same result.

Now probably the most overlooked cause of colic and that is the weather. Yes, it’s not an old wife’s tale nor folklore or any other fantasy. I have witnessed many horses colic when the weather changes. Here is my theory on that. Changes in weather are accompanied by changes in barometric or air pressure. We know that happens because barometers work on exactly that premise.

Let’s go back to our helium balloon that we used as a visual aid yesterday. How many of you have tied perfectly well inflated balloons to the mailbox or fence or gate or something outside and left them there overnight?

When a balloon is subjected to the cooler night air, the gas inside it contracts and the balloon starts to shrink. When the sun comes up again and the air warms up, the balloon plumps up again as the gas expands. However, some days, the balloon doesn’t expand as much as it did the day before. Why not? If a bag of sand was put on top of the balloon, the amount the balloon could expand would be limited by the weight if the sand on top of it. The more sand in the bag, the less the balloon would be able to expand. The pressure inside the balloon would increase as the expansion was suppressed but the actual dimensions of the balloon would not be able to change.

So how does this relate to the colicky horse?

As the air pressure increases or decreases with the change of weather, the cavities in between the coils of the gut act as the bag of sand around the balloons of the gut. As the pressure increases, the food inside compacts under that pressure and the water is squeezed out through the wall of the gut. As the pressure decreases the balloon is expanded and the compression required to squeeze the food along is restricted. In either case, the food stops moving or best slows down.

Often times when a horse experiences colic, the food lying immobile in the gut can ferment into acid and will cause the wall of the gut to be burned and thus an ulcer forms. As these ulcers become irritated, after the colic is long gone, the gut will react by slowing down so the passage of food over the inflamed, ulcerated spot will stop causing the painful irritation. Unfortunately, this is the cause of another bout of colic as the food starts to ferment in place once again.

This is not an exhaustive list of causes of colic, but hopefully I have covered the major causes and put some information before you in an understandable form. Watch for tomorrow’s entry on how to prevent colic from happening.

Why Do Horses Colic? Part 1 of a 4 part series

2006-12-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

Colic is a dreaded word to any horse owner. What a human mother dismisses as a simple belly ache in their child can be fatal for our equine children. Why is that so? What can cause colic? How can we prevent colic? How can we diagnose and treat colic?

Over the next four days I will try to answer those questions for you.

Let’s start with the “Why”

Visit any barn and you will be able to gather stories about colic. Only last year we had a mare at our own barn that had a history of colic go down with another bout in the early evening. Her daughter had died at an early age, around 3, from colic and her son was also prone to colic. But why? Do horses in the wild colic so often? Why did God create such a large animal with such a delicate digestive system?

Let me answer the easy question first. No, wild horses do not colic as often as domesticated ones. If they did the herds would be decimated and the landscape littered with bodies. Because of the nature of wild herds, actual statistics on the occurrence of colic in wild herds is very scarce. As the wild herds are increasing at a rate of approximately 15% per year (see http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ceah/ncahs/nahms/equine/equine98/eq98cat.pdf), it stands to reason that colic is not as common in these herds as it is in our domestic herds.

The next question is also not too hard to answer. God created the horse’s digestive system to work in conjunction with the horse’s lifestyle. Horses were created and designed to walk a little, graze a little, walk a little, graze a little, walk a little... and so on.

We (meaning homo sapiens) have taken this beautiful animal out of it’s natural habitat. We have taken them off the plains and grasslands where they can run free and unfettered and have put them in, at best, 12 foot by 12 foot cages that we call stalls.

Instead of their low nutrition, high roughage, small, frequent meals we shove buckets of high nutrition, low roughage, processed food in front of them twice a day and demand that they eat it quickly so we can get them out before they poop in our nice clean cages. To compensate for the lack of roughage (fiber) in the processed food, we either put them out on grass for a few hours each day or we give them a couple of flakes of hay twice a day to compensate.

For the most part the horses deal quite well with this change in habitat but, because it is not being used in the way it was designed, it does leave their systems at risk.

The horse’s intestine is wrapped around inside the body cavity and lies in coils just like any other animal. Where the horse digestive system differs is that fermentation of the food occurs in the large intestine and that intestine is not anchored or held in place by any membranes. Therefore if the food stops moving through the gut, the fermentation continues to produce gas which will, under certain conditions, because the gas is lighter than air, cause the coils to move; in fact cause them to start to float like a long, coiled up helium balloon.

As the coils start to rise, they will shift and turn and sometimes they twist right around and effectively pinch off each end of the length of gut. Think of a balloon sculpture. The man making the sausage dog will take a long straight balloon and twist it around to make the head, legs and body. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens to the horse’s large intestine.

It doesn’t take a very large leap of understanding to see that this then becomes a very significant problem. Just as the twists in the sculptor’s balloon cuts off the movement of air between the different segments, so the movement of both gas and food is similarly restricted once the twist occurs. This situation is what is commonly known as a “twisted gut” and is usually the condition that requires surgery or causes death. As the gas and food cannot move along the gut, the fermentation of the food will continue to build up the gasses in the restricted section until the gut bursts.

Before the situation reaches this critical point, there are several things that can be done to prevent the total restriction and I will cover those in a subsequent entry.

There are several environmental factors that will increase the likelihood of the food clogging up the pipes, as it were. Look for the next article to find out what contributes to the cause of colic.

How to deal with a barn sour buddy

2006-09-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a horse that is barn sour? Does your equine companion behave perfectly at home but becomes one of the devil's own when you try to leave the barn and go out for a nice relaxing trail ride?

Most riders find that riding in the arena is only satisfying to a point. Even when training my show jumpers, I throw in at least one trail ride a week for each of them. Being out in the countryside is where God intended horses to be. OK so He didn't intend for them to be carrying my fat butt around while they were out there, but you know what I mean!

So we all know how frustrating it is when you make up your mind to spend a couple of hours relaxing and unwinding on the back of your horse, just trolling around the neighborhood, only to find that your horse has other ideas and refuses to leave the safety and familiarity of the barn. What was intended as a stress reduction exercise can rapidly turn into an instant blood-pressure elevation technique.

So how to deal with the equine tantrum without bursting the proverbial blood vessel?

First of all, accept that you are not going on a trail ride today - rather that what you really wanted to do was to have a training session with your buddy which would actually evolve into a program which will culminate in a trail ride sometime in the future. Accepting this inevitable fact will go a long way towards keeping the blood pressure even and will minimize the risk of the loss of temper on either part and thus the risk of damage to anyone. Just how far in the future your trail ride might be depends on how stubborn your buddy is and how often you are prepared to work at this. As with any horse training exercise, patience is the key and each session will last no longer than your temper, so be prepared for a lot of short workouts!

What gave you the first clue that your horse was not going to leave the barn? Did he just walk so far towards the gate and then stop? Did he start prancing or backing up as you walked towards the gate? Did he turn around every time you pointed him away from the barn? Did he get so far and then turn around and head back? Did he (as one of my mares loves to do) stop dead and start lifting his front feet up as he tried to wheel around (not exactly a rear but more of a protest)?

Whatever form of protest you (or he) can think of is quite possible to be exhibited by the barn or buddy sour horse. Many people decide to overcome the problem by always riding out with a friend and letting the other horse lead the way. That is certainly an option, but what happens when your friend moves out of state or is visiting her mother on the only day you have time to take a ride? It is just as easy to take a ride with a friend on a non-barn-sour horse as it is on a barn-sour one but it is impossible to take a ride on your own on a barn-sour horse so the best answer is to cure the barn-sour problem.

So let's get started.

First of all pick a spot between the barn door and the gate that is closer to the barn than the point at which the horse started to balk. That is your trigger point. It may only be a couple of steps away from the barn, particularly of your arena or the turnout is in the opposite direction. I had one mare that would go happily through the fields, out the "top" gate into the woods and around the trail, returning along the street, down the driveway and through the gate, but refused point blank to go on the exact same ride in the reverse direction, starting by towards the gate.

Our purpose for the triggerpoint is to start our work before we reach it. If we stop the confrontation before it starts, we do not end up in a battle of wills.

So having picked our trigger point stand immediately outside the barn door, mounted and facing towards the trigger point. Ask your horse to walk forward. When you reach the triggerpoint, ask the horse to stop. Immediately ask the horse to do something else. Depending on the amount of space you have between the barn and the trigger point, turn the horse around and walk back or ask the horse to back up. Do not give the horse time to think about the triggerpoint and decide it is now the place to stop. Immediate action will make the horse consider the trigger point as a place to start work not stop.

When you get back to the barn door, ask for the halt again then immediately start back towards the trigger point. Neither the barn door nor the triggerpoint can be the end of the work session - horses are very good at figuring out that a place is where the work usually stops - that's why they always slow down approaching the gate to the arena and speed up as they go away form it.

Repeat this process a couple of times. If you feel your horse is not balking as you approach the trigger point, take him one step past the trigger point before reversing. However, if you feel any resistance at all, ask for the halt and reverse before he can complete his protest.

Do not repeat the process more than 5 times with the same trigger point. Otherwise your triggerpoint becomes your balking point and you will have to move the triggerpoint closer to the barn and start again.

Having worked on this for no more than 10 minutes, take your horse into the arena or wherever you usually work him and give him his usual workout. There can be no reward for refusing to do what you asked of him in the first place. You may not get your ride, but he isn't getting a rest.

The fastest results will come if you are able to work with your buddy every day, but I am realistic to know that this is not always possible, so just make sure that every time you do work with him, you start off with the barn-sour exercise even if you do not intend to trail ride today.

The next time you start work, pick a new triggerpoint. The new triggerpoint will be one stride short of where you left off last time. Repeat the process, moving your triggerpoint forward as often as you are able within the 10 minute session.

As the triggerpoint moves further and further away from the barn and you have more room for maneuvering, you can throw in some harder exercises. For example, make a quarter turn on the forehand towards the right, then leg yield / sidepass back to the barn; turn around, take 2 steps back towards the barn, halt, complete turn on the haunches, walk back to the barn. You can throw in as many variations as your imagination will come up with.

Eventually, depending on the distance from your barn to the gate, you will arrive at the gate.

Here is another big obstacle. Passing through a gate is a milestone and needs to become something your horse wants to do. So start with a closed gate.

Does your horse work with gate opening? If he does you are ahead of the game. If he doesn't, well you need to work on this anyway.

If he does work on the gate, go ahead and open the gate, take 2 steps away from it and then close it again.

If he doesn't work on the gate, walk him right up to the gate and halt, if possible with his head over the gate, if not then as close as you can get. Turn your horse on the forehand so that your favored hand is closest to the gate (right if you are right-handed or left if left-handed) and you are facing the end of the gate with the latch.

If you are not close enough to reach the top of the gate, use your outside leg to push him closer to it. Grab the top of the gate with your favored hand. Give the gate a little pull and let it rattle a little so that he is not spooked by it. If he is calm, you can continue, otherwise, turn him back on the forehand so he is facing the gate, back up a couple of steps, turn and walk back to the barn, ready to start again from here the next session.

Once you can touch and rattle the gate without a reaction, walk hour horse forward so that your leg is by the latch. Lean down and open the latch with your favored hand. Sit up and grab the top of the gate and hold it steady.

If the gate opens towards you, use your inside leg to ask your horse to move away from the gate one step then forward one step. Allow your favored hand to slide along the top of the gate thus keeping control of the gate and preventing it swinging into your horse and spooking him.

If you feel any resistance or fright in your horse at any point during this exercise, stop immediately and reverse your steps to the point where he is relaxed then start again from that point. If your horse is not used to opening a gate, it will likely take several sessions to perfect the process.

repeat the side/forward steps until your hand reaches the corner of the gate. At this point, ask your horse for a turn on the forehand, around the gate so that you are on the other side of the gate and are facing the end with hinges.

Now reverse the process by asking for the step forward and step to the side to close the gate.

When you get to the point of closing the gate without resistance you may either repeat the process and open, go through and close the gate to get back, or if you feel your horse has had enough, by all means dismount and lead him back through the gate. Above all, keep the stress level low for both of you.

In case you didn't notice, you just passed through the gate and off the farm property without a fight - congratulations!

In all probability, having reached this milestone, your horse will now continue on down the road and through the trails without incident. He will be so happy to be able to go forward and relax, that he will not balk again. However, if his euphoria at being able to keep going forward wear off at any time and he decides to stop again, treat this point as the new focus for the triggerpoint and work on getting past that point in small increments.

NEVER let the horse decide where the turnaround point is. Once he balks he has to go past that point even if it is only by a step or two and then you can decide the new turn around point and head for home.

This is not the easy solution, but it is a resistance free, conflict free solution that can help to sharpen some other skills while resolving the problem.

I hope you have some fun working on this and - I know happy trails will be in your future!!