Hector's story

Hector, 17 hands,  Dutch Warmblood.

Spooky is not a strong enough term to describe Hector, I think he is not so much spooky as suffers from panic attacks.  Everything used to upset him, if someone walked by, a bird, cars, wind in the trees anything that caught he eye even if he saw it a 100, a 1,000 times a day his reaction was always the same, turn and run.

When I bought him I was aware that he was difficult and quirky. His previous owner had tried to sell him for some considerable time. Although she rode him well she thought that since she was 5' and very slight he needed a bigger and heavier rider to stop the silliness. At nearly 6' and twice her weight I agreed. I couldn't believe that we could afford this potentially exciting dressage horse. I really thought he was a bargain but, he turned out to be more than I bargained for!

Hector is a very handsome horse with good confirmation, he has a lovely loose movement. He is the very stamp of an advanced dressage horse but then without the trainability.

The Dutch have a saying for timid, spooky horses 'they have a little heart' in Hector's case he has a miniscule heart. He panics constantly. He launches himself and the bucks come with such force that he has to run on his front legs to stop himself from somersaulting. Everyone who ever saw him had the solution, it was his back, his teeth, his saddle. We had these checked and rechecked but there really was no underlying problem. We tried bit after bit but when he panics he runs through them like a knife through butter, no breaks whatsoever. We tried Natural Horsemanship techniques, long reining nothing worked. We drew a complete blank. We were left with this talented horse who was locked into this flight mood at every turn. Life was so bad that my friend refused to take me to A&E if I fell one more time. Our local feed merchant used to give me free calmer, the idea being that if it worked on Hector then that was recommendation enough!

I belong to the BHS and hardly ever open their quarterly magazine. However, this year I did and there was your leaflet with Pauline Fergusson riding her horse in the wind. This was going to be the last straw, if this didn't work then I wasn't going to spend a penny more on this nightmare. The change in Hector is unbelievable. We made huge strides in a very short time. He gets better and better. I can ride in corners of my school that a few months ago would have landed me in A&E.  Suddenly our world has changed dramatically. He now goes in a snaffle and has amazing brakes. When people came to the yard and watched him strut his stuff round the field they always used to say 'you should be out competing on him', I cannot tell how my heart would sink. Now our future looks so much brighter. 

I am attaching four photographs, we are standing in the worst windiest corner with the combine going full tilt and tractors passing and all he is doing is watching as opposed to heading for the gate at full speed with me in tow!