Are horses spookier than they used to be?

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nona1

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do people ride out less? Expect trouble more?

I've been out of the loop for a long time, but I get surprised by some of the threads on here and the amount of 'spookiness' that seems to be considered normal. there have always been the odd spooky horse. There's always been the odd thing that can set off even a steady horse.

But I can't help get the impression that things are worse than they were say 20 years ago?
Not that traffic is worse (I agree it is, but why would that make a horse spookier - surely they should be even more exposed to it and therefore even more used to it?) but people's expectations of how a horse will naturally behave. 20 years ago you pretty much assumed everything was 'bombproof' because pretty much everything was. We rode past lorries, bin lorries, milk carts, cars, motorbikes, caravans, trains etc without turning a hair, it was just normal.

I guess I'm thinking about it because of a recent thread that had a photo of a horse being ridden by a couple of lorries with a train nearby as well, and all the comments about how much of a saint the horse was, and how amazing...I had to look again at exactly what a hero this horse was being. It looked like a fairly normal situation to me. I'd EXPECT a fully-grown horse to go through there no problem, babies are still learning about this stuff, but once they get to about 5 or so they should have been there, seen that, got the numnah and not fussed unless it's something truly weird like a landing hot air balloon (been there)!

Or am I old-fashioned?
 
I think riders in general are much more nervous which creates spooky horses. People get so scared that the horse is going to spook that they look for things and avoid them rather than actually tackling them. There's someone at my yard that will ask me to stop riding in the school as they lead theirs past as it will spook their horses, sorry what?!
 
Interesting post :D I had my own horse as a kid/teen and hacked around my local village quite happily, I don't ever remember myself or pony being phased by anything .... nowadays I avoid hacking on a Wednesday as its bin lorry day!! the horse I loan now is reasonably spooky and will run past anything that scares her and if there was a sideways showjumping class we would have a red rosette!!

xx
 
I think it's a mixture of things.

Partly feed - I'm sure we never used to give so much hard feed as most do now. Also, work - most horses now are in light work but in the past would have usually worked harder. A lot of owners think their horses are in medium/ hard work when in reality it's light, and feed accordingly.

I do think we also have a lot more leisure riders nowadays, so people are more nervous & maybe don't expose the horse to the sights & sounds.
 
Rider experience: I think there are far more riders these days, their general experience and standard is poorer, they only ride bombproof ponies in an arena, then one day they go out and buy a pony from persons unknown, and the problems start.
 
I'm sure that spooky wasn't an issue when I was younger. I reckon a lot of it is to do with over feeding, and not enough exercise though. We used to feed nuts and chaff to hunters doing two days a week - adding oats if they were lazy, and barley if they were skinny! Youngsters, ponies and cobs got nothing - they lived out 24/7, unclipped and unrugged, and had a couple of sections of hay in the field during the winter.

We used to do a LOT more roadwork as well - pre season, hunters got up to three hours a day walk and trot to harden their legs, and a bit of canter/gallop. Once they were hunting, they hacked out every day for two hours, and hunted twice a week. They were only turned out on their day off, and then got roughed off and turned away for the summer.

Ponies were left alone all week, then we Pony Clubbed/competed/galloped the legs off them at the weekends (Head bowed in shame!) Never broke one - they seemed to cope fine.

The youngsters were backed and ridden away slowly and carefully, not hacking out until they had brakes, steering and were totally relaxed about having a rider on board - this included people bouncing around, hanging off the side of them, carrying a feedsack around, and removing/putting on coats! They were led daily off an older horse before they went out with a rider.

The only horse I ever remember being spooky and troublesome was an ex racehorse who the owner used to oat up to the eyeballs. He was a raving loony, until his summer holiday, when he was so fat and placid that we used to clamber on board with him loose in the field. I'm sure that he would have been perfectly sane if he had been managed like the others.

There was less tolerance for bad behaviour too - my grandfather used to growl at anything that misbehaved, kick it in the ribs, and give it a good clout with his hunting whip. His horses loved him to bits, but were also very respectful of the boundaries. A bit of a buck and a jolly when setting off in canter was fine, but any misdemeanours on the road were not tolerated!
 
Traffic is downright dangerous now. Even early on a Sunday morning the main road is full of parents taking kids to football and parking dangerously stupidly on the road forcing riders ontothe wrong side.
However my boy is not spooky in general. In fact yesterday I stopped to talk to someone and their dog ran into horse with a huge branch. Pony didn't even flinch. He was worried by the neighbours balloons! But just watched warily as we passed.
 
Paris1 said:
Traffic is downright dangerous now. Even early on a Sunday morning the main road is full of parents taking kids to football and parking dangerously stupidly on the road forcing riders ontothe wrong side.
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You see, I'm old school and like a couple of earlier posters, I don't see that sort of thing as any excuse for bad behaviour/spookiness from a horse of any description.

If horses have been brought up properly they should accept everything that you can throw at them; every horse no matter what its job in later life should have been taught about any type of hazard up to police horse standards as a norm' but sadly nearly the only thing many people with young horses think about now is how quickly it can go in an outline and do a test so they can get out competing.

As someone else said, the lack of natural riding as opposed to always riding in an arena doesn't help people grasp the awareness they need either but more than that, I am a firm believer that horses aren't broken as well as they used to be and increased traffic is a poor excuse.
 
I honestly think the general culture of horse ownership is changing. There seem to be a far higher percentage of people who are just plain nervous and can't really ride. So many people get on a horse anticipating a problem, that in turn usually creates the problem.
 
There are far more horses and riders these days as well as more traffic etc.

I do agree, by the age of 5 they should have been there done that. Maybe the popularity of competing at whatever level means that horses are not being ridden out as much and spend the majority of their time in the school.

And then there are the horses/breeds that are just 'spooky'.

I've got a Welsh Sec D. She is great in traffic, escaped chickens running around the road, the odd pheasant popping out of the hedge, dirt bikes, dogs running around, baby shetlands chasing up the side of a hedge but if a leaf comes in her direction she'll jump! Odd! She's worse in the school but luckily her 'spooks' consist of a bit of a jump (not moving anywhere, just her body twitching), she stops dead or at worst a leap to the side to avoid the killer leaf real or imagined or a scuttle forward for a couple of steps.
 
There are a lot more continental horses about now trying to be all rounders which IME are not as bold out as the sort of horses most of us used to ride who would spook but keep going. This type of horse tends to be more explosive/reactive, its what they're bred to be as athletes.

Traffic goes a hell of a lot faster than it used to. The lanes scare the pants off me - but I'm not a nervous rider and I grew up toddling off down A roads dodging artics.

Saying that, there are an awful lot of riders about who think its OK to try and control everything and everyone around them to accommodate their horse's/their own fears. Your horse and its behavior are your problem and your responsibility, no one else's. You can't go instructing people to put their brollies down/push their kid's pram down a ditch out of sight/move their herd of cows to another field/etc... :D
 
amymay said:
I agree.
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Me too!

I think back in the day riders put up with far less than they do now & made less excuses.

I don't go in for all this 'my horse won't hack' business and as an earlier poster said it's all down to how they're started (though obviously if a horse has had a bad experience then it's more understandable I guess and with more horses being imported from the continent where they generally don't hack out as much I suppose that could be another reason for this statement).

There is an awful lot more traffic on the roads now than there ever used to be though and with that comes more nut-case drivers! :mad: This though comes back again to how the horse is started off I believe, these things should be taken into account.

I remember going to see my boy before I bought him (he was 4 yrs at the time) & his old owner was hacking him out, lorries, buses, motorbikes, kids on push alongs etc all went past and he didn't bat an eyelid. When I said I'd seen enough & I'd have him she was quite surpised as apparently we hadn't even reached the busy area yet and I think she quite fancied showing off his bombproofness! He lived at the end of Leeds/Bradford run way and she regularly walked him through 'washing' hung on the line just to expose him to as much as possible :)

I continued this exposure to varied things throughout his education (and still do!) and I'm proud to say that horse would hack anywhere, he regulary leads out the less confident/experienced horses & gives them heaps of confidence and when an important visitor to the estate wants to hack it's Bailey who the YM takes (with my permission of course!) for her to ride (and the YM has the choice of maybe 20-30 horses he could use!) & even though he's a bit on the big side for her he's still safe because he's a complete gentleman - it's sad that he's more of an exception than a rule these days.
 
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I totally agree with this "people are much more nervous nowadays" i think people find excuses not to tackle problems with there horses and in some cases are far to forgiving with there behaviour. I have an old cob who some would class as bombproof pretty much dosent spook at anything but wasnt always like this we had to teach him that some behavour wasnt acceptable no matter how spooked he was.. Currently going through same thing with my 4 year old who is as brave as a lion and tackles most things head on

Down our lane we quite regularly have gypsies congregate and saturday i rode past these with a friend had bit of a look but nothing unexpected.. so decided to take her past on her own yesterday and the yard created an uproar like i was asking it to jump through burning hoops of fire.. the horse was more than capable and proved by the fact she quiet happily mooched past them. But i couldnt believe the attitude of some people. Most of the people on out yard wont hack out for reasons people have already stated but then wonder why there horses are a bit joly and silly when they do go out..

Ive always been taught if your worried about anything while riding take a deep breath and tackle it head on, if you appear confident so will your horse.. Both mine hack alone and in company and my youngster is even leading much much older horses out so i do think a lot of spooky behaviour is down to riders making more of a deal about situations than necessary.
 
Agree with Flame_. Due to an increased focus on competition success/boostering of the ego, better horses are being bred which is great, but the downside is there are ignorant people also getting involved and trying to breed general riding horses, or alternatively, buying the wrong type of horse and getting into trouble.

There is less focus on learning through fun and everything is so safety orientated that it tends to produce riders lacking in confidence. There is no way a riding school would let children trot bareback on the roads on their own now on horses far too big!! But that was common place years ago. As well as the rest ;)

Add to that increased traffic, a society drive towards always rushing (applicable to both the traffic and to riders aiming for their goals), too much horse feed that just isn't suitable for the average horse, people wanting to own a horse sooner instead of riding school/shares/loans, a focus on trying to problem solve on your own or an attitude of blaming the instructor, far too many gadgets and quick fixes...

So yes, a combination of many factors
 
I agree with others about too much feed, lack of riding skill & too much time in a school. As a child I can only remember a very small no. of nervous horses & even then it wasn't a case of them being too spooky to hack. For me i've recently experienced this with my daughter & her young pony. A lot of people have been quite shocked that we've broken her without (shock horror!) an arena! After 2 years of in hand bombproofing on roads etc I expected pony to get on with being lunged/ schooled etc in a field with passing cars, horses turned out next door or whatever else. At local shows I was shocked by the amount of people who think its normal for their horse to spook at the secretaries tent. So many people have said my daughter is very lucky to have a bombproof pony to hack out, which to me is normal.
 
I agre with all the above points, but also that they are more pets now. People let them get away with a lot more as they aren't so much working animals expected to do a job as mollycoddled pets!

Also as a kid, we had cobs or other working horses who were kept as one big herd. Now, people have a wider range of breeds and living arangements, sure that must have some kind of effect?

Pan
 
I wonder if it is a bit to do with the fact that a lot more people can afford horses now. When I was young it was only the really well off people who had horses or rode and they could afford proper lessons etc. horsey people started riding at a very young age, did pony club etc, which must have done wonders for confidence Now there are so many more horses around and speaking personally I had never been on a horse till I was 32, though I did have lessons, I have never been very confident, due possibly to the age thing which always filters through to the horse
 
Maesfen said:
You see, I'm old school and like a couple of earlier posters, I don't see that sort of thing as any excuse for bad behaviour/spookiness from a horse of any description.

If horses have been brought up properly they should accept everything that you can throw at them; every horse no matter what its job in later life should have been taught about any type of hazard up to police horse standards as a norm' but sadly nearly the only thing many people with young horses think about now is how quickly it can go in an outline and do a test so they can get out competing.

As someone else said, the lack of natural riding as opposed to always riding in an arena doesn't help people grasp the awareness they need either but more than that, I am a firm believer that horses aren't broken as well as they used to be and increased traffic is a poor excuse.
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So so agree with this but also the amount of horses bred and sold on via dealers or from Ireland, pulled out of the field for backng, saddle chucked on, mouth strapped down, draw reins to get the look of an outline and sold as made. Little or no real education or experience of sights and sounds. Years ago there were far fewer horses available to buy and those that were had seen a bit of life.
 
No, horses are not spookier, but their riders are. Lots of rider/owners seem to be terrified of their horses, waaaay overhorsed and clueless as to the nature of horses (i.e. they are not poodles, pets, little angels, deep thinkers or malicious). I too am rather old and have previous!
 
Deseado said:
No, horses are not spookier, but their riders are. Lots of rider/owners seem to be terrified of their horses, waaaay overhorsed and clueless as to the nature of horses (i.e. they are not poodles, pets, little angels, deep thinkers or malicious). I too am rather old and have previous!
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Great first post and welcome!:)
 
I think it's a combination of things which give us that impression. our age makes a difference for a start, 20 + years ago i was still a teen and pretty invincible in my mind!! didn't care if the pony spooked at the milk tanker or tractor, in fact cantering sideways down the road was a bit of a laugh rather than scary:eek:
now as a parent if i see a child on a pony doing that i think of the safety aspect instead.
Also i think there are more novice adults these days, i don't remember many adults in our groups during the few years i had lessons, all kids and teens. most of the adult riders i can remember had been riding since they were in the womb and had the old school no nonsense attitude. if their horses spooked at the lorry or tractor they didn't panic but sternly made that horse get on and trot past the problem and then trot some more after;)
i think our views on things change as we get older, we tend to view the past through rose tinted glasses and think it was all wonderfully behaved horses and knowledgable caring owners;)
 
I do also think tho that as general public lose the generation for whom horses on roads were normal (eg the mlik cart horse) and also gain the 'entitlement' mentality to drive as fast as they like in cars that are way faster than they used to be AND there are many times more cars on the road, there are genuinely more issues than in the past.

Agree with the overhorsed bit too tho - Ive downhorsed myself to an Orange Pony, best thing I ever did!
 
Yes I think a lot of people dont know what they are doing and think its like training a dog. Do not spend time getting horse used to traffic etc. Unfortunately due to H&S riding in a menage is they way most children get taught. Not out hacking etc.
 
Related to exercise and feed is turnout. Horses that live out 24/7, aren't stuffed full of hard feed and every sugary supplement going, and get regular exercise, have far less excess energy to devote to spooking and general pratting about.

As others have mentioned, the trend towards having to have something fancy and foreign instead of something which can do the job and you might have a chance of riding one side of, definitely has a lot to answer for:eek:
 
possibly, yes but only due to the lack of challenges that they're faced with.

It has amazed me how many times in the last few weeks i've heard people say their horse doesn't 'like' this, that or the other so they avoid it - it never used to be this way I'm sure we all just used to get on with it.

I certainly have with my new boy despite having been in riding widerness owning a retired golden oldie for many years until getting the lad 6 weeks ago - bicycles? what bicycles - there were a problem when he first arrived but not any more (unless they come in groups of 10+ :D) because we've been out and about seeing them and I'm happy to say that you can literally drive a bus up his arse, over take him at 50 mph in a car (or a bus from last weekends experience!) or cycle past him now.

... next stop the deer ... ohhh they've got dangerous antlers don't you know - give us a few weeks and I'm sure there will be a hand free to take a photo of them ;)
 
Are horses spookier than they used to be?
do people ride out less? Expect trouble more?

No, no, and no. Not in my experience.
 
Deseado said:
No, horses are not spookier, but their riders are. Lots of rider/owners seem to be terrified of their horses, waaaay overhorsed and clueless as to the nature of horses (i.e. they are not poodles, pets, little angels, deep thinkers or malicious). I too am rather old and have previous!
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I confess that traffic really scares me. It scares me when I am foot. It has nothing to do with my horse at all. Been hit while on my bicycle a few times and now it really creeps me out. That means that unless I am on a horse that I have faith on in traffic, that I cannot ride out on the road at all. It isn't fair on the horse. Best horse ever in traffic for me is my TB who is now retired. Never had to worry about traffic. Just scary statues and horse eating carpet. That stuff doesn't bother me at all. I'd give a lot to ride him again. (He has done a knee.)
 
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