How Do You Stop A Horse From Bolting?

I have a couple of horses and whenever I got to work them out, they always bolt, or spook, or dump the jockey, or fight the jokcey.  I have tried varying the workouts, changing equipment, changing jockeys nothing seems to work?  I was wondering of anybody else had any other suggestions?

Generally it means their Natural Energy is low. You should probably ship them to the farm for a few weeks and let them gain it back :slight_smile:

Actually, only one thing (the jockey pants comment) is related to NE.

Cool, I didn’t know that! I thought bolting was a sign they didn’t want to run because they were too tired but that explanation makes more sense :slight_smile:

But If they have spooked in previous workouts I tried them with blinkers and they still spooked? Should I ship them back to my farm for a couple of weeks ?

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the comments. Ship em’ home for a week and then race them. The more racing experience they have the less likely they’ll be to bolt.

The horses may also just dislike blinkers because they can see even less.  Try a F8 or a Shadow Roll on them.  Maybe one of those will help the jockey either a) control the spook or b) avoid the spook.  Each horse has optimal equipment that improves them.  So in some cases a horse’s dislike of a piece will outweigh any benefit they might get from it.

Also, as I said, some of the bad events can be caused by too much energy/fitness.  Sending them home for 2 weeks would help with too much fitness, but would make the energy problem worse.  So you need to figure out what works best for the horse (obviously if he’s A energy and D fitness, you can be pretty sure it’s probably not a fitness problem, and vice-verse).  As Andrea said, some horses will improve a bit with their ideal equipment, but even with that if it’s an issue of excessive high spirits (so to speak) it won’t matter what you put on your horse, he’ll still bolt/spook/buck/whatever.  :wink:  In that case, just outfit your jocks with body armor and pray.

lol , I seem to get the problem children of the horse world also, either i owe jockeys several jeans, ( ive invested in levis and wrangler now ,lol) But my thing is i dont care how bad they behave if they are placing at the track, which they are doing pretty conisistantly. I agree i usually go for the F-8 and shadow roll first and most of the time that seems to help. good luck you will figure em out eventually  :slight_smile:

Thank You for all your advice, I have shipped them all home for a couple of weeks them i am going to try to race them again see if is any better. All your advice has really helped.

Thankx so much
Molly