In the winter of 2004, I had help from Bryan Neubert starting 6 colts. By the third day of work we had named one of them ‘Pinner” because he always had his ears pinned back when we would catch and work with him. Bryan suggested that we make a little project of him.
The next morning before Pinner’s ride we spent a half hour with one of us on each side petting him from ears to tail. He tried to bite and kick the whole time, but we did just enough petting to make him work at being petted but not totally come apart. He wasn’t any different after about 30 minutes of this and I rode him as usual. The change came the next day and it was as big of an overnight change as I have ever seen in a horse. His ears were ahead and he acted totally happy to be caught and petted. It was incredible!
Since then I’ve applied that to horses that were like Pinner. I’ve had good results but never quite as dramatic as ‘Pinner’s reformation’.