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[RC] UPATE ON MY Hard-to-catch-horse all of a sudden - Christina Schiro

Thanks to everyone that wrote back with their opinions, thoughts, and suggestions! I have taken it all into account and will reread ALL the emails again tomorrow. Here is what has happened since I wrote to you all with my problem:
 
I asked Kellye to turn Ice out in the arena by himself and fed him his dinner there. I went the next morning before he was fed breakfast. While he watched with interest, I went into the arena with a carrot but without his halter and sat on the mounting block in the middle of the arena. First Ice walked past me to his bucket by the gate because he thought his breakfast was in there. After realizing there was no food there, he walked a big circle around me, stopped, and looked at me. After a minute or two, I got up and walked in his direction, but after a couple steps he starting trotting. I left the arena, walked to the round pen nearby, and picked up the lounge whip. As I walked back towards the arena, he was still watching me and made a bee-line at a walk towards the arena gate and was standing there by the time I got there. I put the whip down, opened the gate, gave him some scratches, and put his halter on. I tied him up and checked out the short-hair spots. You can see the black skin beneath, but his roan flea-bitten spots are still there (so there are no "white spots" from pressure). I brushed the backside of my nails gently across many areas and he flinched a little bit over that area. I loaded him in the trailer and took him to a previous appointment to get him microchipped. When I got back, I put him back in the arena by himself. The next morning, Kellye had returned him to the pasture with the rest of the horses. So I went into the pasture with the halter, made right angles towards him, and didn't look him in the eye directly. He high-tailed it to the other end of the pasture. I kept him moving him with my voice, lead rope, and occassionaly I ran a couple steps, but mostly I just walked a little bit. I didn't have my watch but it was probably about 15-20 minutes of him galloping around and getting a couple other horses involved. Sometimes he would stop, turn towards me, and look at me. I would start to make right angles towards him again, but he would take off again. Finally, one last time he stopped and I was able to walk right-angles toward him until I reached his side, petted/scratched him, and put the halter on. I took him to the barn, gave him a treat, and brushed him, then turned him out again. I did some other things for about 1/2 hour and went out to the pasture again with the halter. He saw me coming and trottted off in one circle, but then let me catch him. Much better. I will continue to use this method of catching him. I am giving him a few weeks off of no riding. Just catching him and doing other stuff with him and to let more of the hair grow back. He is getting his teeth checked by a dentist this Sunday. I'm going to get the chiropracter/bioscan lady out in a few weeks. I am going to look into getting an anti-slip pad to put underneath my skito and equipedic pads so that my treeless saddle doesn't move around so much. I am also going to borrow a friends arabian-tree saddle to see if he acts any differently under saddle, although he acts just fine now. But maybe somehow he will act better.

Christina Schiro <christina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When I purchased my current 13 yo Arab Gelding in Feb '05, he was very hard to catch in the pasture.