Are 'spooky corners' always curable?

[Jackson]

Generally Jack is quite sensible, however there is a corner (or rather two corners) in one of the schools on the yard that he really can't tollerate. His reactions to it vary, from ducking out and running off with me at the start of the ride, to being a bit tense.

Whenever we ride in there (never at the moment as for his hocks sake, everything is being kept as quiet as possible) we always finish when he is completely relaxed going past them, but whenever we go back in there on another day, the battle starts again!

He is also the same if walked in hand up there, and refuses to go up there if loose in the school. If he's taken out of the school and walked along the fence to the other side of the corner, he's also quite on edge. We warmed up in there for a dressage comp and even with the other horses, it still worried him.

Some of the other horses on the yard also have trouble with this end of the school. It's pretty ordinary, the horse walker and a tractor are near it but he should have got used to them by now!

I can't think of any bad experiences he has had in there, and he has had this problem for well over a year now and persevereance is really not paying off. Even when we were riding in there every day. I wondered if it was something else that he was objecting to (like the surface..) or maybe we really do have a ghost for him to spook at

Any suggestions?

 

[SamandMonty]

Monty has spooky corners!!! Especially at my trainiers yard. There's one corner he's terrified of, never worked out why. Spent about 15mins of one lesson desensitising him to it. Next lesson back to scaring him. He also used to do at another yard which had a seat at B. Could go 40 mins of 45 min lesson without knowing it was there but for the last 5 mins the seat suddenly become terrifying.
So far haven't found a cure just perservrance. Let me know if you have any luck!

Sam

 

[monkeybum13]

I would make a positive effort to do as much work as possible at that end of the school, both ridden and ground work.

My horse is not a spooky horse but a few weeks after being at the new yard she decided that the top end was spooky (she's a cow and will do anything to get out of work) so I did a lot of schooling at that end, then when I was knackered I stuck her on the lunge and made her lunge at that end.
She's learnt her lesson and hasn't been silly since.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I find that feeding in these 'spooky' places helps. If they're looking for a bucket they usually forget to worry about what else is there.

 

[Caol Ila]

When you get him back in work, try doing exercises where you ask him to leg yield away from the spooky corner before he starts to spook. It sounds odd, but I find this kind of "reverse psychology" works for such things.

 

[Jackson]

Thank you three, it's nice to know that he is not alone! I was wondering about giving him food up there, but the mere mention of the stuff sends his energy levels flying and we could do without that I was wondering if I had over worked him down that end of the school, causing him to be napping away from where he thinks that he will be doing the most work, but surely he wouldn't be the same in hand and loose if that was the case?

 

[olop]

At my old yard there was a spooky corner, it had a tree there and there were always horse eating pidgeons darting out from it
I succesfully cured it with a mixture of working more that end & getting him to flex inside away from the corner as I passed. It took a few months but it cured him & he could no longer use it as an excuse to nap anymore.
Good luck - it definitely can be done

 

[stencilface]

My sister's horse will generally pick a spooky corner in every school he goes in - he's 21 now and has done this trick for 17 years, so I don't see it stopping anytime soon

(he has had his eyes checked, I think he just like ths thrill of scaring himself!)