Can a spooky horse ever be, well not bombproof, but despooked?

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tanyajade

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I have a 10 yr old spooky Sec D mare. She's the sweetest thing,she malice in her at all. She's just spooky.
I'm working with a great guy on overcoming the spookiness, and she's doing great. She's willing.
I was just wondering, have you ever known a spooky horse to get over it?
 
as a section D... err no :p. Frank's 21 and... well.... ;) He's great with actual scary stuff/lorries etc. Fairy lights not so much, a funny patch of grass, a mystery thing that isn't even there, his own shadow (which sends me in to a lot of giggles). I can wrap the ****** in a tarpaulin but he will still spook at the 2 bits of plastic on our no-parking caveletti by the yard gate.. that he sees a lot.
 
I have a spooky/sharp warmblood. He came to me very spooky and jumpy, wouldn't hack alone, wouldn't go over fillers etc. With him though it was a confidence thing.

Fast forward 2 years, he hacks alone 4days a week, we're jumping at 1m/1.05m, he's hunting and doing a bit of everything!

BUT... he still spooks. Sometimes at really stupid things. Is she quite experienced or quite green? If the latter she will get better, whether or not she will ever stop spooking is debateable. To be fair though, even the ploddy-est, most bombproof cob ever will still spook if something genuinely scares them.

Have you had her a while or is she new? If she's new, you'll come to learn her triggers and what she finds really scary so you'll be able to predict her behaviour a lot more.
 
LOL- my Arabain gelding is a recreational shyer, always has been, always will be. He has done thousands of km's endurance riding and training, I've done the equine agility thing with him (flags, flyscreens you name it), but at 15 he still takes evasive action "just in case".

I actually think he does it just to make sure I'm awake and in the interests of keeping my riding skills sharp! I will give him absolute credit for improving my stickablity.
 
Gee thanks Ester haha!

Wow well done Brimmers!! I've had her 7 months so it's still new. Her triggers are pretty much everything. Every object we've confronted her with has frightened her, but she has made progress with every one of them. I rode her over tarpaulin yesterday, calmly too. Very proud of her.

She's had a lot of owners who've basically used her for what they wanted then passed her on. She's done a bit of everything.
 
I suspect she will improve but then plateau ;) Frank was much more on edge for the first year of ownership... we're now at nearly 9 years!
 
Conversley I do imagine he wouldn't actually bothered about a bomb though ;) Last weekend a HGV went past us and then OMG there was a horse :o in a field :o on the otherside of the road :p. Do we get any pics?
 
Yeah mine was a spin-drop-shoulder-run-off-in-opposite-direction-at-anything at about 10 years old. Now he's nearly 15 he just does a little leap on the spot then waits for me to deal with it. I guess he trusts me!
 
The ridden Appy is 17 and still very spooky. Absolutely fine in the heaviest of traffic, but spooks at her own shadow, some flowers and wild plastic (plastic at home is fine, presumably it is tame :p ) She is fine being passed by a tractor and trailer with haylage bales with the wrap flapping, but went from canter to stand still in a nano-second, complete with dropped shoulder and then dropped me, when a bit of wrap waved at her on a track! I usually just laugh at her these days and don't expect her to change :)
 
I have a Sec D gelding - he's only 6 but great on the road, serious 'scary' situations and with all tractors/buses/smashing glass in bin lorries etc etc. HOWEVER, put a plant pot on the end of someone's drive, move the wings in the corner of school, place a jump block on its side or a crisp packet on the road and we have Hell. I've just accepted from having him for 6 months and speaking to other Welshie owners on here that it's just their nature. I do try to 'bombproof' him and he is getting better with things such as parked cars, skips and fillers under jumps, however the smallest things still set him off.

You'll be able to do as much as you can to bombproof your Welsh D, however there will always be that demon carrier bag in the hedge one day :P
 
ester said:
as a section D... err no :p. Frank's 21 and... well.... ;) He's great with actual scary stuff/lorries etc. Fairy lights not so much, a funny patch of grass, a mystery thing that isn't even there, his own shadow (which sends me in to a lot of giggles). I can wrap the ****** in a tarpaulin but he will still spook at the 2 bits of plastic on our no-parking caveletti by the yard gate.. that he sees a lot.
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Ha yup, thought that was just me and my Welsh D!
 
If he is a spooky horse then he will likely always be a spooky horse but hopefully with work you may be able to turn the "voulume" of the spooks down so that he's only properly freaks out at terrifying things.

My old Sec D x would go anywhere on his own for anyone and would go for miles. Never reared, never bucked, never bolted. But if he had a spooky head on then he would actively LOOK for things to jump at. After a few years I could predict when he was going to do it and became good at blocking the worst of them but he did still catch me out from time to time. Oh and he held a grudge... if he spooked at a rock once and I handled it badly then he would spook at it for about 6 months until I learnt my lesson! (same with jumps... if I had a bad refusal at a fence it would need putting on the floor to get him over it for months!)

Current pony acts like he is going to die over every least little thing but then mostly he wants to go over and investigate the scary thing and then gets over it. Unfortunately this would appear not to apply to cows which he remains terrified of
 
Yes, they can.

My boy was terribly spooky, a few people who knew him told me he would never hack out - he had never left the gates of his previous home in 12 years.

Fast forward a year and after A LOT of patience, perseverance, determination and a burst blood vessel (him not me, I asked him to walk through a puddle ffs!) and tears (me!) we are now hacking out alone in a sane manner!

We walk past moving buses - even double deckers!
We walk through RUNNING WATER!! (he nearly landed on the moon the first time mind you ;) )
He will stand and be barked at by dogs (safely in their garden!).
He will stand and have the hoardes of high school kids go past him at lunchtime.
He calmly walked past a funeral procession -umbrellas included!
We walk past a building site where they are building new houses - lots of scary machines, vehicles, cranes, men shouting and swearing etc etc
He doesn't even look at things like pushchairs, children throwing tantrums, joggers, cyclists, dog walkers trying to control their dogs from coming to get us...

And to think the first time I took him a walk in hand he nearly ripped my arm out of it's socket as he was so petrified of EVERYTHING and the first time I rode him out he took off down the road in a panic and I had to run him into a tall hedge to stop him.

He is so chilled out and laid back, a completely different horse to the state he was in a year ago.

The newly sprouting daffodils however.... it's only going to be a matter of time before they eat him :)
 
NZJenny said:
LOL- my Arabain gelding is a recreational shyer, always has been, always will be. He has done thousands of km's endurance riding and training, I've done the equine agility thing with him (flags, flyscreens you name it), but at 15 he still takes evasive action "just in case".

I actually think he does it just to make sure I'm awake and in the interests of keeping my riding skills sharp! I will give him absolute credit for improving my stickablity.
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And nice to hear someone use the word shy (or shyer). It's all spook these days. Like personnel became human resources. Managing directors, CEOs. World's gone word mad. Apologies. Having a dictionary didactic (does that word actually mean anything?)
Also, I ride an ancient horse who has literally jumped at his own shadow in the sunshine. But has happily waltzed past incredibly loud road-digging machines. He will never change...
 
Aha just funny and interesting tales there. Thank you everyone. Hopefully, as mentioned, together we can 'turn the volume' of the spooks down... without a burst blood vessel ;)
 
I got my mare as a 8 year old she was a spinner, shoulder dropping, get me out of here spooker - she did get better over the years however, she still deposited me on the ground at the age of 26 when she caught me off guard! :o
 
tanyajade said:
How can you always be 'on guard' without feeling tense, and her knowing it?
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I don't know if I can explain this properly: it's more of a mental thing, paying attention to the horse, not letting your mind wander into what you're going to have for dinner rather than feeling the horse underneath you. Welshies have a great sense of fair play - if you're asking them to pay attention to you then they reckon it's only fair that you give them your full attention in return.
Don't know whether it's just a Welshie thang, or whether we just notice it on Welshies as they seem to 'amplify' stuff.
PS my welshie is similar to lots of the ones described in the posts above - will walk through the middle of a building site, past tractors and binlorries, past school playgrounds, doesn't care whether it's hailing or windy etc etc - but if one tiny leaf is in a different place than yesterday then it must be noted and acted upon!!
 
I think my cob is a wannabe welsh, she's quite happy with the heaviest of traffic but then eeeek!! A LEAF!!! I've ridden many spooky horses, I find they don't always stop spooking but if I don't react then the spooks get less dramatic over time.
 
oh thank heavens I thought it was just my welsh cob :D
Got to love them.

The one thing I can say helped with us is something very unexpected.
I started jumping her. Never did as she was so spooky and She would even spook if someone else was jumping in the arena and had a pole down.
but now she has gotten in to jumping she is much braver!! even had the dentist out without sedation last month. Be lieve me that was a very big deal.
She is now 11 and will always be a 'adult' pony I would say but for us jumping was the key!
 
I think you can improve it to a certain extent but I do think that a lot of them never change. It really irritates me when people tell you to desensitise a horse to certain things - it's not always possible to do that.
 
tanyajade said:
How can you always be 'on guard' without feeling tense, and her knowing it?
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Ditto the they think it's fair that you give them your attention too comment from Catkin.. I frequently think he is 'just checking you're awake'

It is also an excellent guide to if he is working properly when schooling ... as he will then try and spook ;)

With regards to the above... his ears are a great tell tale marker.. I know exactly what they mean these days even fractionally before. He still caught me at the weekend going from canter to ABS down a track for I don't know what (he is becoming good with the pheasants though!) - oh and a suede seatsaver isn't a bad investment ;)
 
I think they can improve but not sure it ever goes away completely. Mine (not a Welshy... been there, done that, never again!) can be incredibly spooky. He is sharp anyway which in itself isn't a problem because he is also clever, a quick learner and loves to work, so I don't want the sharpness to go away. He has become less spooky as he gets older, but that corresponds to him being more sure of himself, better schooled, more confident. When I first got him as a 5yo he was an absolute nightmare, would spook wildly on the road at nothing and spin around, trying to go home. He's great to hack now, still v forward going and sharp (if it's windy he will spend the entire time snorting and behaves like he's hunting), but the naughty spooking has stopped. He trusts me now and he's as brave as a lion, so while he does still look at things, he is happy going new places, walking through streams, up and down banks, through the woods etc.

We still get spooky moments in the school but tends to correspond to when he is tense. If he is relaxed and concentrating, he never spooks. But, he can also be v tense horse (teeth grinder, tail swisher, bunny hops) if something has upset him. He is learning to relax better, and also to channel all that excess energy properly into his work, but it still comes out sometimes as massive spooks. If we are learning something new, or he is finding something hard, that will manifest itself by suddenly having a complete freak out at, say, a jump wing that we've been past 20x already. It is really just a case of him saying this is hard, and not having enough submission, maybe the adrenalin going a bit (he can get a bit spooky when jumping if he is excited... never at the jumps or fillers, just at odd things in the arena, or random things on a XC course) and he just boils over.

so yes, I do think they get better but it never 100% goes away. With mine, it is definitely related more to submission (or lack thereof!) and tension than anything else. Get him relaxed and swinging along, and he doesn't do it. Same out hacking - if he works properly all the way around, he doesn't do it.
 
Another thing about her schooling & concentrating. She always looks outside the paddock, whatever you're doing, riding, lunging etc. I've been told to constantly have a 'conversation' down my inside rein to keep her looking in. But surely there's only so much inside rein & leg until she becomes numb to it?
 
Our mare is fine with Lorries, tractors, motorbikes etc, everything I would want her to be solid with... so when she spooks at that building site she walks past everyday without a glance, or a bush with red flowers, or some fly tipping including a horse eating monster I can live with it.

I just laugh at her now, rather than entering into an argument when she starts to back off my leg I wack it on and start thinking what I'm having for tea, what Im doing in the morning just so im not focused on what she is doing. And no.... I don't think she will ever change, part of her personality is being a worrier and it's just something I learn to live with. She has made me a much better rider though !
 
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