PONYING - CHAI
HORSE: Chai, 18mths, Mustang filly gathered in 2022 at 3mths old from Pancake, NV.
SITUATION: Chai runs ahead of the lead horse, causing him to speed up and get anxious.
GOAL: Chai can be ponied calmly, staying a polite distance behind the lead horse, and responds to soft cues on the halter. -
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Step 1: Establishing Baseline
The first time I tried leading Maz and Chai together I was marking when they were both calmly walking beside me and rewarding Chai before Maz, but that escalated tensions and Maz tried to kick out at Chai. This caused her to run ahead of him and or generally keep her distance. It was clear that we had a lot of work to do before I would be able to calmly pony Chai off Maz.
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Step 2. Protected Contact
I decided we needed to use protected contact to separate Maz and Chai to keep us all safe and focus the sessions on getting them relaxed with being together. Maz was at liberty on the outside and Chai was on a lead rope inside the round pen. Chai is worried about Maz chasing her off, and Maz is worried about Chai getting all the food, so we first need to deal with those emotions before worrying too much about the goal of ponying.
Maz started the session tense and dropped but by the end of the session he was more relaxed. We had no “outbursts” from Maz which great and Chai felt safer with the barricade between her and Maz.
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Step 3. Riding Position
Progressing the walk together exercise with Chai inside the round pen and Maz outside for her protection.
What’s different:
1) I am working with both horses at liberty
2) I am in riding position next to Maz and Chai is at my shoulder
3) I am being more clear about reinforcing Maz’s head position when we stop
4) I am feeding Chai first and asking Maz to wait
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Step 4. Leaving the Yard
I wanted to see how Maz and Chai would do together if we left the yard. I was hoping this could be the key to unlocking Maz’s relaxation around Chai and would circumvent the dropping and the aggressive behavior toward her. For this mini session, I left the food and the clicker at home to minimize triggers. They both got a big jackpot when we got home.
I was really happy with Maz — he did exactly what I had hoped. He was relaxed, easy going, and didn’t show any tension or aggression toward Chai. Chai is still barging ahead and needs to learn to stay a few steps behind Maz’s shoulder.
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Step 5. Teaching "Stay Back"
I needed to do more practice with leading Chai on her right side and specifically with the “stay back” cue to keep her behind my shoulder. I don’t want her running in front of Maz when I start ponying her and don’t want to have to put pressure on her halter all the time to keep her back. We practiced this cue first at liberty and then transferred the cue to her halter and lead rope. It worked perfectly.
Summary & Conclusion
There were several challenges to overcome to achieve this goal, some related to Maz’s resource guarding behavior around food, and some related to Chai’s anxiety around Maz and her inexperience with leading. We solved these issues by changing the environment (leaving the yard), removing food rewards from the actual ponying sessions, teaching a clear “stay back” cue for Chai, and isolating and practicing calm connected leading with Chai (separate case study).
This video shows a clip from our 4th short ponying session in the neighborhood. Chai is directly behind Maz, which is fine as our trails are single track.