Don’t Eat the Grass!
Have you ever led or ridden a horse that snatches grass? It can be very frustrating to have either the lead rope or the reins ripped out of your hands. Fortunately, there is an easy way to fix this situation.
But let’s start with the facts. Horses are meant to graze for many hours throughout the day. They should be grazing more than meal feeding. Meal feeding makes horses hungry, and it's no wonder they snatch at grass given the first opportunity. So if you are meal feeding your horse, you might want to consider putting their hay in slow feeder nets to meet their biological need to graze.
Regardless of whether you meal feed or graze your horse, they still shouldn’t grab for grass when you ask them not to. Grabbing for grass is disrespectful and can be dangerous. I have witnessed many people get pulled forward, almost to the ground, by a horse yanking them out of their seat.
So, what is the solution? Many people will say you should yank on their head or get them moving when they bite for grass. Neither of these solutions are solutions. First, yanking on any horse will cause them to brace and argue with us. Getting them moving doesn’t help because their reflexes are far better than ours, and what they will end up doing is snatching for grass and then running, which is exactly what we taught them to do.
So what should we do instead? First of all, seeing as how we don’t want to be the ministers of no, and seek to be the ambassadors of yes, we should set up a learning experience for our horses that looks like this.
First of all, don’t wait until they have already snatched at food to correct them. Stand with them somewhere where there is no grass. Tap them on the shoulder with something until they raise their head, and then rub on them. All you are doing here is rewarding them for raising their head. Practice this until they can raise their head and understand what the tap on their withers means.
Then move to grass. Repeat the earlier learned behavior. Each time the horse puts their head down to eat, tap them on the withers. Think of this as tapping someone on the shoulder to get their attention when you see them at the grocery store. Rub them when they pick their head up.
This type of training does two things. First, it says to them, “Go ahead…and see what happens.” You don’t need or want to have a punish attitude about eating grass, just a consequences attitude. This gives the horse agency in its comfort. If they want to be tapped on the shoulder (most of them don’t), then all they have to do is reach for grass. If they don’t want to be tapped on the shoulder, then they won’t eat grass. It’s a consequences game after all, the same game they play with each other.
If you set things up this way, your horse will begin to ponder the pressure that is about to appear. Most horses would like to avoid that pressure. With some horses, all you need is a light tap. Others might require you to be firmer. Whatever the case, make sure you practice ahead of time, instead of getting yourself in the middle of a grass fight with no way to communicate with them other than pulling on them or making them go in a circle.
Horses are very smart. One of the things they want most in the world is the knowledge of how to make pressure go away. Your job is to help them figure out how to do that.