Hello,
Very new to the forums, mostly joined because of a problem I am having with my 5 year old paint filly. If I have good luck here, I'll be sure to come back with any problems I have in the future.
She's been broke for a little over 10 months now. I broke her to saddle last year and had very little trouble doing so. I even took her on several trail rides, which she thought were lots of fun. However, as the weather worsened for winter, I really couldn't work her for a couple of months. But what with the weather warming up now, I have gotten back into working her again and getting her ready for summer riding. I'm having a very bad problem though, and it concerns breaks.
She's a bit high energy, and a go-go-go sort of gal. But last summer, I wasn't having any problems getting her to whoa from the saddle at all. For some reason now, she's not whoaing for me at
all. Now, she stops very well when I'm free lunging her in the round pen and on the lunge line. It's just when I'm in the saddle. What really is the most unsettling part, at least to me, is the way she tosses her head back up into the air and hops up like she might go over backward whenever I ask her to whoa for me.
It started just around the time I traded in her 'O' ring snaffle for a very, very short shanked curb. I thought maybe it was the bit, and tried again with the 'O' ring, but she doesn't stop for me at all with that, and plows right through it.
Has anyone had a problem like this before? Any suggestions?