In response to a question about an aggressive, "darn near dangerous" horse not wantin' his hooves handled. The horse is reported to be a wonderful critter other than when wanting to work on his hooves.:
Morning Folks!
Here's a similar situation and all I can say is this horse needs lots of patience and good intent from the people handling and working with him. !!
I have a horse here whom I saw for the first time a year ago last January. He was scheduled to be euthanized because of "Navicular". I was called in to tend his hooves as a last resort. I started to work with him in the stall as it was bitterly cold out and apparently, the LAST farrier to see this horse caused him to rear and flip over backwards on the cross ties. This is NOT an aggressive or mean horse. This horse is an absolute love! So, the owner tells me about the rearing and flipping over and all as I have Mr. Horsies' right front hoof in my hands and we're in a 12 X 12 stall. This is not a pony, either. This horses stands 17.2 hh and weighs about 1400# at minimum. It took a long time to get 2 front shoes/wedges off his hooves, get the hooves trimmed up and have him a happy camper. In fact, I believe, if I remember correctly, it took over 2 hours just to tend his front hooves. Lots of "approach and retreat" stuff, lots of Clicker Training and more so than either one of those a WHOLE lot of gentle and calm intent from me. We ended up moving into the indoor arena after doing the fronts so I could see him move. He took off with a HUGE buck, fart and then raced around the indoor. Something he hadn't done in several years because of his "navicular". The owner broke down in tears and I ended up a little misty-eyed, too. Well, the appointment to euthanize this 11 year old Lippizan/TB was cancelled and 6 months later he ended up boarding with me and now all I need to do is point to the foot I want and up it comes for me. No more prancing and dancing and pawing and striking and attempting rearing. Thank God cause, like I said, this is one big, honkin' horse! But as gentle as they come. The previous farrier had hit him with the rasp, put chains over his gums ON THE CROSS TIES, and manhandled this poor horse. I trim him up, now, while he stands with the lead rope draped over his back out in the middle of his 100 X 100 paddock.
