I have a 2yo Appaloosa who I am pretty sure has limited vision in one eye...?

Question

I have an unbroken 2yo Appaloosa gelding. Like a lot of Appaloosas he has one ugly eye. The lady I bought him from did say he might have less sight in that eye because he reacts differently on that side and now I am pretty sure he doesn't see as well out of that eye.. I have started teaching him to lunge. He seems to walk into me when I ask him to lunge on that side then tries to turn away and lunge the other way. He then was trying to not let me walk in front of him to go on the side with the 'bad' eye. He also doesn't lead as well when I walk on the side of this eye.
I was wondering if it's still possible to get him lunging as well on the 'bad' eye side as he does on the good eye side and how to go about getting him use to it etc??

Answer 1

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Well, from my experience it is eventually alright. I had a quarter horse gelding that was blind in one eye, completely. He was my barrel racing horse, so it was hard to break him of his habits on the "bad" eye (he was home broke with some help) and he ended up fine. The trick we found was to continue what we were doing on that side. We basically got him used to what we were doing more on that side than the other side. We tried not to treat him differently, or specially on that side, just worked that side more.. with stuff like brushing and turning towards the "bad" side. If you want to just lunge him for now, work on turning him into tight circles, you have to take charge over him. Let him know that he has to move to that side, but you're not going to hurt him.
Do the same thing while riding him when he's broke. A trick we used to get our horses to bend more when I was still barrel racing was to unhook the reins on the bridle and pull them to one side and tie them to the horn. It sounds stupid, but it will get him to turn into that side better. His problem could been that because he realized and his last owner realized he couldn't see well out of that eye, he baby-ed it. Now he's just used to not using it. With some persistence he should be able to turn as good as my quarter horse.. he can do a barrel pattern on both sides, without any problems..
I hope I helped alittle, if not, I give you more direct advice.

Source(s):

14 years of riding. (Barrels, 3-Day eventing, Stadium, Thoroughbred Racing)

Answer 2

probably with a lot of training