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Submitted by: Faris Collins BHSI

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Hi Karri Ann, thank you for submitting your problem to our website. It is difficult to offer advice without being able to see you and your horse first hand, but here are some pointers to help you towards finding a solution. My experience with horses that have blindness in one eye is that it hasn't caused great problems if the rider takes into account the lack of vision in certain activities e.g. jumping. Regarding your horse carrying her head too high - this could be attributed to her adjusting her head to get better vision, similarly not being able to keep the horse straight at trot or canter. I would suggest initially working your horse on the lunge or on a longline, this will give you the opportunity to observe your horse on circles and straight lines to see if the problem is either reduced, remains the same or is worse so will eliminate ?rider error?. You could also try riding with a friend who could ride on the blind side of your horse next to her to help keep her straight, and if this is successful would give you the feel of your horse being able to remain straight. You could also try riding a novice dressage test with the other horse at her side, making the circles etc. larger so as not to unbalance the horse, and ride the patterns of the test in walk and trot. If this seems successful after a while you could get the other horse to gradually drop back behind and catch up only if your horse cannot be corrected on its own. Loading on to a trailer - If you set aside a day to work on this problem and tried the following method: Have the trailer with the ramp lowered and, with your horse on the longline, walk her across the bottom of the ramp on the left reign and the right reign. Spend as much time on this that is necessary until your horse can walk and trot across the bottom of the ramp without hesitation, this can take anything up to 2 or 3 hours. The main point to bear in mind is to have patience and not increase the horse anxiety. Bearing in mind the limited vision on the left, it might be advisable to start this work on the right. This exercise is done more by lunging the horse on a large circle to incorporate the ramp not by leading it. Once this has been successfully achieved this would be a good point to take a break and give your horse a rest and maybe give her a feed where she has to reach forward on to the ramp or step on it. Then use the same technique (preferably keeping the horse in walk) to approach & go up the ramp. Finally, my advice to you is to get some professional help from someone with a quiet approach to assist you. Here are some additional questions you may want to discuss with a prospective trainer: How long have you owned the horse? Have you always experiencing the problems with this horse? Do you attribute all your difficulties to the horse being blind in one eye or are there other factors involved? How do these problems limit your enjoyment of your horse? Let us know how you both progress, Faris

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