Question about 2 year old gelding

[ladydreamer]

Hi. does anyone have any training tips for stopping a horse from stomping his front feet and nipping people. Recently got a 2 yr old saddlebred, is doing great other than these 2 major problems. Is there a proper discipline/training technique. Thanks and everybody take care! This site has the nicest people Ive ever come to know.

[horse_child]

One thing to stop nipping is if you feed treats from your hand, don't, use a bucket instead. Also, my horse would always try to nip while i was cinching him. One day i stuck my elbow out and when he swung his head to nip me he hit my elbow HARD. I'm not sure which of us squeeled louder, me out of pain, or him out of surprise. But it did the trick. For pawing, i'm not sure. Hitting them really doesn't work. The trainers that i work with have a "patience corner" they tie horses that like to paw and put hobbles on them. The horses sometimes freak out, but not usually. See if anyone else comes up with anything before you use that though. that's more of a last ditch effort type of thing.

[someday]

A lot of saddlebreds are high strung individuals..some are not though..a lot depends on breeding..So, the behavior doesn't suprise me from a saddlebred, but really it doesn't suprise me from any 2 year old. You must convey to him that both of these behaviors are unacceptable. I would be very careful hitting around the head..it can make them headshy and make other things(like bridling) extremely difficult..the best way to correct this behavior is to not allow him to invade your space. Horses are very aware of spatial areas and dominant horses can invade other horses spaces at will(running them off from food, water, etc). If you allow your horse to come up and stick his nose on you and play with his mouth, it's just confusing to him as to who is dominant. Teach him that when you are working around him that his nose must stay in front of his chest. If he comes into your space, simply poke him with a finger in the cheek or just move his head with the halter or lead rope into the proper position. You should do this with any body part that invades your space. If he does reach out to nip you you must correct him immediately, poke him in the nose with a finger and give a stern "no". It must come immediately though...the ideal correction comes within half a second of the behavior. You only have about a three second window for them to associate the correction with the behavior...the faster you do it, the stronger the association.
AS for the stomping..First, check for flies..often a good fly spray will take care of this problem...if he's not reacting to flies, he's either impatient or nervous. If he's being rude and impatient...give a loud "NO" and praise him when he stands quietly...sometimes they'll get to stomping and pawing and won't stop for a voice coreection and then I go ahead and give them a light smack on the chest and say no..If he's nervous, you must figure out what he is nervous about, and attack that problem.