aargh!!! how to prevent spookiness at competitions?

[eva]

hello everyone!

My 6 yo horse is very nice in dressage except for the fact he spooks at random things like a letter marker or a judges box or a secretary tent or flower boxes.... I'm so fed up with this. I have tried leading him to the "scary" object, feeding carrots from the said object, stroking and talking gently near said object... I have also tried flexing him away from it, but a) at competitions you can't do that and b) it doesn't help at all!!! I have even tried being really strick with him when he spooks but nothing seems to work. He's so unreasonable, I'm really fed up. He consistently spooks at some letter markers and not others, he's fine on the roads, heavy machinery etc, never had a bad experience competing, his eyesight is fine!!! I'm at loss, any ideas of what can help?!

thanks people, if you don't know what to do I'm ready to give up.

 

[LegOn]

I could be now that its become a habit and he is picking up on your nervousness that you are attending a competition. At home, you are probably keeping his mind busier cause you arent expecting him to spook so he just gets on with it. When your at a competition, your mind is probably more on your own nerves/test/whatever and you arent keeping his mind as occupied so he finds something to keep himself busy - spooking!

Plus you are not expecting him to spook so he is reading that down the rein!

You may have to just keep at it but try your best to change your mindset as much as possible or try and take him schooling to as many venues as possible in order to break the cycle, they say it takes a horse 7 times to learn a habit and you need 7 times to break it - but it must be 7 times in a row in 7 different places, can be difficult for those of us who only travel/compete at the weekends but stick with it - ride like you would ride at home, keep him constantly occupied at the show as much as possible and see if it helps - try keep your nerves on the sidelines aswell as he could be picking up on that!

 

[eva]

thanks, LegOn, we're actually at Patchetts so competitions are at home, and I am certainly not expecting him to spook at something at home, I presume he's seen it all here... I'm terrified to go anywhere else, say in we qualify for Regionals... I don't have neither my own transport nor friends with transport so it's ever so hard.

I guess there's not much I can do about that is there

sometimes I have the impression that if he's concentrate on his work more and on the surroundings less there would be less spooking but what can I do? I try to keep his work as varied as possible and he's so clever that he can easily think about work and spooky things at once aaarrrrggghhhh sorry about this pointless rant!!!