Dealing with a terrified horse on a hack

[Vaskenvalaja]

Hello all!

I'm in need of some opinions about if I made a totally wrong call tonight on a hack. I've had my gelding for almost 7 years, and overtime he has gotten A LOT better with hacking. He's definitely not perfect, but he's especially comfortable in the woods which is where we do most of our solo hacking, while in busier environments he's spookier so we almost always go with other horses.

Tonight we wen't out for a walk around town (frozen ground, barely any snow and no indoor arena so we've been stuck with just walking for weeks now, ugh) with one of our trusted hack companions, a pretty much bombproof arabian. It was dark and very misty, so I was fully expecting my guy to be spooking at all kinds of things especially since we had only been hacking in the woods for a couple months, save for one town hack in December. For almost the entire hack, though, I was pleasantly surprised by him yet again as while he certainly looked at things, he would only pass them wider and really just seemed to rely on me a lot, which was huge as just over a month ago he spooked really bad and I fell off, and I felt like he really lost trust in me in the whole ordeal, which we spent all of January slowly rebuilding. He's way spookier in the dark, too, so it was amazing how well he was doing today.

Things went wrong when we were about 5 minutes from home (as they always do). My hacking friend asked what my horse would think of ice skaters on a skating rink we would be passing. I knew we'd never passed any, so I said I would know when we got there. Once we did get there, though, we came to find out that there was a group of teenage boys playing ice hockey and slamming the puck into the rink walls, which made a very loud banging sound. As soon as my horse heard this he freaked out and started backing up very fast (his usual first fear response), and backed straight into a traffic sign, which did not help the situation. His heart was beating so fast I could feel it jolting my body, and he kept backing up and walking forward and backing up again, and just dancing around in total panic. It's hard to explain but he hasn't reacted to anything this badly in a long while. We were at a four-way crossing, and just by the way he reacted I did not feel comfortable going past the rink (straight forward or to the left), as the teenage guys found it funny that my horse was scared and only kept slamming the puck harder. We could have turned to the right away from the rink, but my boy is especially bad with leaving something he's afraid of behind him before he's had time to get comfortable with it, so I felt that he would bolt if we left the rink behind. I also really don't want to get off in busier locations if he's afraid unless I absolutely have to, as I don't want him bolting off without me onto the roads, and I felt that in this high-energy situation getting off was not the ideal solution.

Overall, I just felt like this was one of those situations where his fear was so strong and unusual for him that it would be most fair to go to the direction he wanted to go instead of forcing him to work through it and go forward. I never ever ever want to turn around if my horse won't go past something, and instead always let him have a look at what he's afraid of and sniff it if he can reach it, or maybe leg yield past it, just overall make as small of a deal of it as possible. This was the first time where the situation was so volatile I didn't feel comfortable asking him to relax and go forward, as he was already doing so well in my book by not trying to take off even though we had to stay there a while as we were deciding which way to go, all the while he was freaking out. At no point did he try to run or full-on force his way to the opposite direction, and if he turned around he would always turn back forward if I asked him to. This is why I felt comfortable just asking my friend if we could turn around and go home another way. She agreed, and I turned my boy back to the way we came. He didn't run off as he knew the way we came from was safe, but kind of "trot-walked", if you know what I mean. He was breathing very hard and was just overall very agitated. Our companion horse was actually a bit confused by him and was scared to go past him in this state lol, so we led for a while before he managed to get to the front. It took about 10 minutes of walking before he had visibly calmed down, and the rest of the way, while still a bit shook up, he was fine and we got home safe. When we were back, I was just really happy with him that he seemed to trust me in this situation and it felt like even though he was terrified, he didn't try to run off and instead waited for me to guide him.

But now that I'm home, I can't stop wondering if turning around was a big mistake. I really think going past the rink would have pushed his limits way too far in this state, but maybe I should have just taken the right turn and left it behind us. It didn't feel to me like a situation where I just "let him have his way", but was it? I just really hope I didn't teach him that he can now get away from scary things by turning around, but the way I see it is that since it wasn't a situation where I just allowed him to turn and walk off, but rather one where he "told" me he was too scared to go forward and I listened.

I'm sorry for how long this is, but any opinions are welcome, maybe they will give me some peace of mind. Crazy how you can own a horse for this long, know him like the back of your hand and still have situations like these

 

[Gloi]

You got home in one piece so you didn't do the wrong thing.

 

[benz]

I think you dealt with it perfectly, better than I probably would! You did what you had to do to keep you, your horse and everyone around you safe. Don’t over analyse it, sounds like you know your horse very well. Well done

 

[Dave's Mam]

You both got home safe. I think you did a good job.

 

[Lucky Snowball]

I think you did right. Ice hockey in the dark would spook most horses. Everyone got back safe, well done.

 

[Caol Ila]

Like lots of us, I kind of grew up with the mindset of 'never let the horse win' but winning is a concept in your head, not theirs. At the same time, you still need to basically be the Doctor and act like you have a plan and know what you're doing, even when you don't. And if that plan entails, 'I am getting off and leading you past this,' or 'We are turning around in a safe and controlled manner,' then that's fine.

I will encourage and go mental with praise when my horses go past scary things whilst ridden, but if they are telling me they can't, I will get off and lead. For my mare, this is almost a fail-safe (she really thinks I'm the Doctor). My gelding is much spookier, and sometimes you need to bail no matter what. For example, we came across pigs on a hack. He kept spinning and tanking. I thought, maybe he will go past in hand. Nope, bad idea. He was still trying to spin and tank, but with me on the ground, there was a much greater chance of him getting away from me. At least on board, I could go with him. We ended up turning around and hacking on a different route. So yeah, getting off can work, but it can also put you in a dodgier position than when you started. Running away from a scary thing can make a problem worse, but it can also show the horse that you're listening. And if they are in full flight mode, you have to retreat as safely as possible because with that much adrenaline going, they are not learning anything anyway.

It's really hard. You have to make fast judgement calls in buzzy, adrenaline-fueled situations about your horse, how they react to things, your chances of cajoling them past the scary thing, how convinced you're feeling about your ability to stay on and/or stop them if they tank, the consequences of tanking (are you in the middle of a road?), how they respond to you getting off, etc. etc.

Warwick Schiller put up a Facebook post about how he builds the horse's confidence at trail riding by never taking them over their fear threshold, and I asked him how he would handle it if stuff just happened and the horse went from 0-60 in two seconds, or if he had no choice but to get the horse past the scary thing. He wrote, "I would never put a horse in that situation." I said, "Okay, but most of us don't have our own 100 acre ranches and stuff happens that you can't control (gave a couple examples)..then what?" Never did get an answer.

The hockey sounds scary. I think I would have yelled at them. Doesn't always work.

So here's another anecdote. I was riding spooky Highland down the road into the park with OH as foot soldier. Pony was calm and happy until a car came up behind us making a weird and very loud *whap whap whap* noise. He spooked, but I got him back. OH saw that the car had a completely blown and shredded tyre, and he flagged the driver down and told her about the tyre, advising her to stop. She said, "But I only live down the road," and continued driving. Pony did a bigger spook, but I managed to stop him. OH spoke to driver again and told her that she should not legally be driving at all, and she needed to wait for us to clear the area. Driver reiterated, "But I only live down the road" and kept moving. Pony lost his sh1t and galloped down the road with nothing resembling brakes. I managed to do a one-rein stop right before a t-junction, then turned him towards the park, but he heard the flat tyre *again* behind him (this woman wasn't reading the room) and tried tanking off. I somehow pulled off another one-rein stop, leapt off his back, dragged him into the Mugdock carpark, and spent like fifteen minutes walking him around the carpark until some of his brain got reinstalled. Not all of it. He was still wired to the moon, and we did a very short hack.

We never got a number plate, and while OH has many wonderful qualities, he is not the most forceful person in the world. I think he was telling the driver to not move in a polite and British way. Had I been able to communicate with her (I couldn't; I was moving quite quickly the other way), I would have said, 'You need to stop driving right f*cking* now and if you can't be bothered calling the AA, at least wait five minutes or someone (most likely me or my horse) is going to f*cking die."

 

[sassandbells]

I think you did the right thing and you got home safe which is what matters most.

My mare is generally pretty good with most things, but definitely would’ve freaked out at something like that. I’ve come to pretty quickly learn to assess the situation and my favourite phrase is “that’s not worth the fight”. I’ve only had to use it twice in the past 4 years and I only use it in situations where it’s too unpredictable for me to navigate it safely - like with the teens hitting the puck harder as they found it funny. It’s a tough one to call, but at the end of the day I think it’s helped my mare massively as she is genuinely willing to listen to me now when it’s a bit of a scary situation rather than just reacting.

Well done for managing the situation, it sounds really scary!

 

[Lois Lame]

I think you did well.

Even if you had gotten off and lead your horse passed, I would say the same. Sometimes they are calmer when the rider is on the ground rather than on top, and I don't know if it's because they know that we are the slower one and will be the one to get eaten.

I don't think we give up when we change plans - I think it's more that we use our heads and decide on the best course of action rather than using force. Force is not the answer.

Btw, that trot-walk is called a jog.

Well done. You sound like a brave rider.

 

[ThreeFurs]

Just been through a classic example of a pony getting so flooded with terror, she was beyond acclimatising to anything. Long story short, she's my best [but less horse experienced] friend's Welshie carriage pony, nice, sensible, easy to do anything with, good with fences.

Moved to a new yard just before Xmas with solid post and rail fencing, into her own paddock, 24/7 out but she had a run in shed, and its summer down here! But! Something, we still don't know what, started to 'monster' her when no humans were around. In the space of two weeks she had three lacerations [minor, on hind legs and front shoulder].

We suspected the 'monster' was a ginormous old male kangaroo, [over 6ft when standing] who lays around the property under trees as if he owned it. Little mare has a bit of 'roo phobia, its not uncommon!

My friend, trying to problem solve, spent hours every week doing all the TRT stuff with mare, walking her past the roo to the school, tarps, flags, you name it. There seemed a slight improvement in little mare's confidence. I was dubious, through experiencing for 13 years my old wb's alpaca phobia.

Then, four weeks ago, at dawn the BO called my friend to say the little pony had opened up her entire right shoulder, like it was a can of tuna. Little girl ran into a fence to get away from whatever ['roo, fox? dog?] and on that fence was a protruding bolt. Laceration into the muscle with layers of stitches.

Her stitches are out, and she will be okay. Friend absolutely stricken by the whole thing, now at a difference livery, but understands that some aversions are so utterly 'flooding' for the horse, that you just have to remove the stimulus, which is what you did on your hack, so I reckon, WELL DONE YOU! x
ps:; yes we realise the BO at the livery, (also a warmblood stud), totally irresponsible for letting the roo hang about, but she was 'fond of it'.

 

[canteron]

I think you did absolutely the right thing. It was clearly too much for the horse and you read it correctly.

The question is, has it dented your confidence. If so, you need to use every little (contrived or not) opportunity to slowly expose you horse to clangy unusual things and see if you can build her confidence in those situations up - an extreme example is to look at police horse training!

 

[Mrs. Jingle]

You took the option that you decided was the safest for all concerned, that is never a wrong decision IMHO.

 

[SEL]

I have seen the Warwick clip & wondered what he'd do if he turned a corner and met a herd of big white cows with calves at foot on the bridleway - who all start coming at you aggressively. I'd like to have not put us in that situation too but I don't have a crystal ball!

OP when we're out on our horses we all try and do the best we can in that moment. You and your riding buddy got home safely so I'd say that's a win.

 

[smolmaus]

Sounds like you made the best possible decisions in a very difficult situation and your boy also did his absolute best for you. Think of it this way; you are overthinking it now but if you HADN'T made such good decisions you wouldn't have the space to be second guessing yourself at this point, you'd be dealing with the consequences of something having gone worse.

Let your own adrenaline come down for a bit, same as you'd do for your horse. We are as affected by these things as they are, your brain working overdrive right now is just as much a hormonal stress response as his puffing and jig-jogging to get home.

 

[tristars]

I would hack him in hand

Frankly he is not coping at all, if you cannot lunge him before going out its a hard one, could have excess energy, does he get turned out at all


Personally I would take him out in hand till he looks like he might start, then stop, talk to him, shove carrots in his mouth, or polos, allow him to stand and look and not challenge him, let him feel what he feels until he settles to actually process the monster, then find some grass to nibble, then
go home, talking to him softly


Is he reactive in the arena

I try to think ahead, if gentle encouragement fails, or it's something new making the horse go tense, I would get off and calm things down

 

[AppyLover1996]

You got everyone home safely and in one piece which is the biggest and best thing xx

I had a similar situation and my now retired lad Billy is pretty much textbook the same as your lad. Billy is the sort of pony who will do absolutely anything for anyone once he trusts you, but at the same time his fear of something can be so massive that it simply isn't worth "winning the battle". One of my stories that I ALWAYS come back to when anyone says that you should never let a horse win, I have written below :

It was a gloriously sunny day (a rarity for the United Kingdom in general!) and my friends and I decided to go on a lovely long hack for about 2 to 3 hours. The horses were easily fit enough for this and we'd planned to stop at a local cafe and grab something for us to eat, whilst they had a rest and some grass. The hack started beautifully and everyone was having such a great time - photos were taken, you could hear us laughing from down the bridleways and the horses were happily plodding along side by side on loose reins. The only downside for this one hack we were doing was a stretch of road where the traffic can be diabolical to say the least. Now my lad Billy got chased by a farmer in a tractor when he was a baby and the fear of tractors or anything with large machinery has never left him (I don't blame him in the slightest and the poor farmer was just as shocked to see Billy hooning around the field in fear as he had no idea there were going to be horses where he was going!) - I knew that there was a possibility of a tractor or large vehicle making an appearance, but he is also strongly bonded to my friends Quarter Horse cross so when she asked me what he'd be like I said "I honestly have no idea but if Vespa (my friends Quarter Horse cross) is alright, Billy will probably follow. He might run up Vespa's ass but he won't go past him or leave the others". Sure enough we saw not one, not two but three of the dratted tractors all coming up the road one after the other.

I felt Billy's heartbeat quicken and I let my friend know and also the rest of the girls on the ride in case I ended up parting ways, and I advised them on what to do if it did happen and everyone was in agreement. Sure enough Billy's fear escalated and he simply rooted to the spot and was shaking - sweat was dripping down him and I could feel he was close to choosing the option for legging it back home and dumping me in the process. I tried reassuring him and gently asking him to move his feet (at this point I didn't care where he moved his feet as long as I could ask him to gently move - my logic being that if I could get him down one of the side roads it would lessen any issues). That promptly backfired and we had the most spectacular rearing and broncing festival that I have ever had to sit to - I was adamant that I was hitting the deck but I smothered my nerves and concerns and focused on trying to calm Billy.

After 10 minutes I said to my friend "He's not gonna stop till either I hit the deck and he buggers off home or something worse happens - I'm going to let him turn and face away from the tractors and see what happens" - we had a trot-walk for about 15 minutes in the opposite direction but he settled and we made it home in one piece.

It was gutting to not do the ride with the girls but Billy was my priority and at that point in time I had decided that it wasn't worth the stress and aggro trying to get him past the tractors.

The next time we hacked that route and he met some tractors he passed them - albeit at a slight warp speed that would have impressed any MotoGP rider - but he went past it - in fact our final hack before I retired him we did the massive long hack route and he was foot perfect the entire way round


You know your horse best and from what I read the situation could have ended dire if you had tried to make him go past - big well done to you for listening to your horse and I'm sure he would say a thousand thank you's to you if he could talk xx

 

[Time for Tea]

I think you handled it all very well. Take confidence from the way you managed it and your horse will take confidence from that too. As said above it is not a question of winning and losing, but keeping everyone safe and managing the difficult situation.

 

[maya2008]

You got home alive and in one piece. You made a decision that kept your horse safe and he will trust you more for it.

I once completely agreed with my horse and we both made the decision to run - narrow trail, very twisty so no visibility in front/behind, off road bikes coming at us at speed going by the noise they were making. They would have hit us without question. She said, ‘Go? Don’t like this!!!’ I said, ‘RUN!’ and we did. Both of one mind as fast as she could safely go. We got to the end of the path and pulled off out of the way only to see a stream of bikes shoot out of the track behind us. She stood and shuddered as they zoomed past and we clearly both figured we had made the right choice there. She was fine with bikes thereafter and there were no ill effects from that experience. In her mind I had made a good leadership choice, she was safe; therefore she could continue to trust me to make good choices.

I would do some desensitising to loud banging noises now you know it’s an issue though.

 

[Jellymoon]

I did the same thing last week with a young horse who is a bit fresh as just back in work. Saw a very large skip lorry coming towards me in the distance on a narrow rode, and in that split second, decided to turn around and not attempt to get past it. It then seemed to speed up and was behind us fairly soon which freaked pony out a bit but we managed to turn right and get onto a different road and got home safe.

I then spend the whole evening wondering if I had taught him to spin round and run away from scary traffic!

However, I am happy to report that he has since settled down a great deal and next time we met something large on the road, I have made him go past it and no harm done. He didn’t tell me he remember the previous incident, so I didn’t mention it !!

So I think you are ok.

 

[Caol Ila]

I have seen the Warwick clip & wondered what he'd do if he turned a corner and met a herd of big white cows with calves at foot on the bridleway - who all start coming at you aggressively. I'd like to have not put us in that situation too but I don't have a crystal ball!

OP when we're out on our horses we all try and do the best we can in that moment. You and your riding buddy got home safely so I'd say that's a win.

Warwick told me, "I would just turn around before the horse reached threshold."

I think one of the examples I used when I queried him about that was encountering a big 'fallen stock' lorry on a narrow road. I could smell the death inside that thing, so God knows how the horse experienced it, but she wasn't very happy. 'Just turning around' was not an option because that lorry was going to pass us no matter what I did.

 

[SEL]

Warwick told me, "I would just turn around before the horse reached threshold."

I think one of the examples I used when I queried him about that was encountering a big 'fallen stock' lorry on a narrow road. I could smell the death inside that thing, so God knows how the horse experienced it, but she wasn't very happy. 'Just turning around' was not an option because that lorry was going to pass us no matter what I did.

I have to get off to lead even my bombproof one past the hunt kennels because we've been up there after deliveries. If I can smell it then she most certainly can. Its the one time I've actually worried about her running off because she hit the threshold and went past it in about 45 seconds.

Not sure how Warwick would have turned around when meeting a combine coming down the road. Then it would have been following me which I think would have been worse than leaping off in a rush and hiding in a gateway. Hedge cutters were my other recent one - I was heading home too, so turning around wasn't an option.

When I used to ride on Cannock Chase I had a lot more room to manage tricky situations. There were different paths to take, wider areas to manage a panicked horse in etc. Very, very different on a narrow road with drivers who are pretty clueless and won't give you the time and space to de-escalate a situation.

 

[Suechoccy]

The option you chose was the safest for you, your pony and your friend and pony (who would have to have picked up the pieces if it had all gone wrong) and for the traffic and the ice rink. It was also the option your pony wanted to choose. So a double-win. Well done.

 

[Caol Ila]

I have to get off to lead even my bombproof one past the hunt kennels because we've been up there after deliveries. If I can smell it then she most certainly can. Its the one time I've actually worried about her running off because she hit the threshold and went past it in about 45 seconds.

Not sure how Warwick would have turned around when meeting a combine coming down the road. Then it would have been following me which I think would have been worse than leaping off in a rush and hiding in a gateway. Hedge cutters were my other recent one - I was heading home too, so turning around wasn't an option.

When I used to ride on Cannock Chase I had a lot more room to manage tricky situations. There were different paths to take, wider areas to manage a panicked horse in etc. Very, very different on a narrow road with drivers who are pretty clueless and won't give you the time and space to de-escalate a situation.

Yeah, that was exactly my point. I gave him a couple examples, and another one was finding the scary thing 1 or 2k from home when you've done like a 15-20k circular ride. You're not going to bloody well turn around, are you?

I think what pissed me off was the lack of empathy for the 'real world' in his response (from a guy who says his whole training philosophy is based on “empathy,” no less!). Most of us don't live on our own 100 acre ranches where we are unlikely to encounter ice hockey/combines/fallen stock lorries/out of control dogs/people doing weird-ass sh1t/random crime scene tape/burnt out cars still on fire/god-know-what construction/fly tips/people setting up a tent/hot air balloons in fields/a whole film crew/etc. etc. I mean, yeah, in a perfect world, our horses would trust us so much that they would calmly walk past a Tyrannosaur and a whole bloody Dalek army if asked and never go from 0-60 in a second, but in reality, most of us aren't genius horse trainers, and if sh1t hits the fan quickly, as the OP and many other contributors in this thread have described, you just have to figure it out on the fly and not die, ideally. I wanted to know how the genius horse trainers handle it when sh1t meets fan, and I still don't.

 

[Vaskenvalaja]

Thank you oh so much everyone for your reassuring replies and for sharing your own similar experiences, they have really given me confidence in that I made the right call. We went for a short in-hand walk around the yard tonight and he was fine, although we didn't get far as the ground is incredibly icy right now, my guy has studs on his feet but I sure don't so I could barely get anywhere without toppling over

His part loaner is riding him tomorrow so I made sure to remind his spooky self today that he is, in fact, a native war horse and should therefore behave like one. Let's just say he was not interested in what I had to say.

We made plans with the same friend from yesterday's hack to have a go at it again next weekend during daylight hours and hopefully go past the ice rink again if it's empty, which we have done many times before, just to make sure not to have my boy associate it with fear. Our companion also looks forward to writing over yesterday's hack with a better experience, as she was also left with a bit of a bad taste in her mouth as her horse slipped and fell on his knee on the way home (unrelated to our panicky situation), getting a bit of a scrape. What a hack, eh, truly one to be documented in the horse owner chronicles.

 

[Trot_on]

You all got home safe and that’s the main thing.

My Connie is a spooky hack, and I often hop off because that really helps him in lost situations. You know your horse well and what works for him. When they are that scared, offer support however you think is most appropriate to make a potentially dangerous situation into being safe - be it turning around, getting off, whatever is takes so that the horse learns he is safe in your company.

I always say to my boy, that we have just one job each when out hacking. I get him home safe, as he gets me home safe.