Do innately spooky horses ever really grow out of their spookiness?!

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Erehwemos

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I havent a hope with Ellie. She is spookier now than when she was a baby...all those years ago I thought to myself cosily, 'ah, she'll calm down when she's a teenager....' but it was not so
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This morning, during our lovely early morning ride, she spooked at:

- Her shadow
- Me coughing
- A pigeon
- A KitKat wrapper in the hedge a hundred yards ahead
- A patch of sunlight on the road
- A pile of poo
- A fence post (literally, just one of them - the other 200-odd weren't scary at all)
- A tree that she apparently has not noticed before, even though she has to walk past it every time we hack out

The list goes on
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So, am I to look forward to even Ellie's twilight years filled with yet more spooking? Anyone who has had a spooky baby before....did they grow out of it? At 14, is Ellie past the point of ever improving?
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- A patch of sunlight on the road
- A pile of poo
- A tree that she apparently has not noticed before, even though she has to walk past it every time we hack out


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haha.. these are the sorts of things Andy is always looking at - it's scary stuff!! he is 12 now so i have given up all hope of him ever not being spooky..
i think you can safely say at 14 she is not going to grow out of it!!
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Misty is 29 and still occassionally finds her shadow THE scariest thing she has ever encountered
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Sorry, not much help
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I think she does it to wind me up though as she spooks at the silliest things and yet will plod past tractors/diggers/people shooting etc
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she spooks at the silliest things and yet will plod past tractors/diggers/people shooting etc
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You see, Ellie finds diggers/tractors/people shooting every bit as scary
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I'm fighting a losing game I fear
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At least she's taught me how to keep my bum in the saddle!
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I hate to say it, but I think you will have to live with eternal spookiness!!!!
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One of my ponies, otherwise known as "The neurotic one" was spooky as a baby, he is now 15 and gets worse as the years go by. Hacking out he spooks at literally everything, both infront, behind, and the worst are the imaginary monsters creeping up to bite his bum. However, he will also stand in the field, with the other two grazing calmly next to him, and he will stand, head up, snorting, then bolt off looking terrified, while the other two dont even look up! I have had to stop bringing him in at night in the winter as he spends the entire night spinning in his stable.
I have lost count of the number of times he has jumped while he was tied up in the yard, and landed on my foot with road nails in!
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He also got in a panic while my daughter was loose schooling him, and he tried to jump the five bar gate to land in my lap for a cuddle - luckily he didnt hurt himself, but the gate has never been the same since, and I had concussion!
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I got my vet to check his eyes a couple of years ago, they were fine, and my vet who has known this pony all his life said he will just get worse with age.
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Just as well I adore him, no one else would put up with his neurosis!!!!!!

Good luck with Ellie - she can be forgiven her spookiness as she is just SO beautiful and gorgeous.
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Oh GREAT!
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This is a wee bit embarrassing...but the other day, hacking alone in the woods after a very healthy legume-based meal, I thought I might be isolated enough to safely, er, expell wind...and let's just say it made a sound...and the pony spooked and tore off!
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This is a wee bit embarrassing...but the other day, hacking alone in the woods after a very healthy legume-based meal, I thought I might be isolated enough to safely, er, expell wind...and let's just say it made a sound...and the pony spooked and tore off!
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PMSL
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Yup I would agree, once a confirmed spooker always a confirmed spooker.

My Netty would also spook at her own shadow, then spook even more because her spooking made the shadow move! Many many things were terrifying including some that were invisible to the naked eye. She once got caught short and had a wee on a slight slope. The wee trickled past her and she took off like a rocket
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Never improved a jot
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My dads horse is 16, we have owned him since he was 2 and every year he just gets worst with age!! He will spook at everything and anything, a leave, a tree, a coke can ANYTHING!! we rode out on Sunday and he just went along the path like a banana looking for something to scare him!!
 
I have to be careful taking my jacket off when riding (I only do it with zip-up ones). If my partner is there so i can very quietly pass it to him as far back as possible so she can't see it I'm usually ok. Though he passed me a bottle to drink from yesterday when I was riding and she was fine until the plastic made that funny noise when the air goes back in, and she trembled like mad! I though her knees were going to buckle, and I had no stirrups, that was a new experience
 
mine is still very spooky at 14 and even worse he remembers things that scared him 3 years ago and has to be careful incase there is another feed bag or person in whichever gateway they were in, i think my horse would be rain man if he was human
 
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Oh GREAT!
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This is a wee bit embarrassing...but the other day, hacking alone in the woods after a very healthy legume-based meal, I thought I might be isolated enough to safely, er, expell wind...and let's just say it made a sound...and the pony spooked and tore off!
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teehee
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Monty spooks at his own farts, it is highly amusing! It's like he's jet-propelled!
 
Ha ha, I'm afraid in most cases once a spooky horse/pomy, always a spooky one! Keeps life "interesting", no?!
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Mine is similar, but not quite as extreme. Will happily walk past tractors, doesn't normally bat an eyelid at a car pulling a rattling trailer along etc, but will spook at a tree stump/boulder/etc!
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In fact, the other weekend at a ODE, we were wandering over to the SJ on a loose-ish rein, me thinking about the XC ahead of us when she suddenly stopped dead and stared at the ground. Wondered what it was- giant rabbit hole? Litter? No... a patch of exposed muddy earth!!! <roll eyes> This big, brave pony is not scared of the spooky SJ fillers or scary XC fences, but arghhhh, piles of mud are out to get us!!!
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(she did the same on the way back from the SJ as well...!)
 
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Oh GREAT!
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This is a wee bit embarrassing...but the other day, hacking alone in the woods after a very healthy legume-based meal, I thought I might be isolated enough to safely, er, expell wind...and let's just say it made a sound...and the pony spooked and tore off!
blush.gif


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teehee
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Monty spooks at his own farts, it is highly amusing! It's like he's jet-propelled!

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Some ladies on my yard suggested I use it as a new aid to ask for impulsion in dressage tests...it's not exactly a voice-aid, after all, is it?
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I would say if they're spooky at age 6/7 then they'll be spooky for life. My now 10yo Arab spooks at everything - stones he's kicked himself, puddles, sheep getting up, sheep lying down, plastic, rocks, big thistles, small birds, shadows - except when he's actually on an endurance ride, and then he'll pass all these things without a second glance. Selective spooking.
 
Our two are awful! I think, aslong as they don't do it when they'rein competition (ie spooky fillers) I put up with it! Ellie (maybe it's the name!) is 15 and the other day scared herself by seeing her shadow. She then tried to walk away, but it followed her. Scary stuff?!

Cheeky has spent ages refusing to gopast a scary twig/ dandelion/ poo. He;s a total poof!
 
Hooray Im not alone
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My boy is 10 now, Ive had him since nearly 4 and hes unreal. I was getting really down about it all but after reading something on here decided to try and laugh about it instead. Ive enjoyed myself so much more.
My boy spooked at a boulder thats been there years, shadows, people, dogs, bikes, squirrels, birds etc etc but will walk past a flapping bag. Strange boy.
 
I also have a spooky horse and have owned her for 3 yrs now, I thought in time she may grow out of the spooking around... err no she didn't
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I have tried all the supplements, change her feed ect ect listened to the experts
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I hate hacking her out alone just in case she puts a BIG spook in and i come off and off she may trot back home, crossing a busy main road in the process
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that scares me for the safety of us both. She is cool with cars, tractors as above really, but things like a concrete boulder, or a change in the yard!! or a sudden bird flying out of a bush or a white road marking!!! yep a road marking, that was'nt there the day before. It was a 40 sign on a country road while out hacking with a mate, she wouldn't go over it for love or a carrot
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and she started to through her toy's out the chuffing pram and on a road, I was SO not happy, I defiantly have a very secure seat now, but the weird thing is that at an O.D.E or at showjumping inside or out she will not spook at anything... fillers, bright colours, water she is soooo bold and just seems to forget to spook
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. I get very fed up tho out hacking and it's not fun anymore. people say the more you do!! it gets better in time?? but I'm not so sure. If there is a spooky horse clinic I'd be the 1st to book her on it
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or if Monty Roberts logs on here, then he'll be more than welcome to have a go
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er, no. Frank is 16.............

but his is welsh spooking its different to other spooking
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Ha ha, Welshie spooking is definitely different. My old boy was brilliant 95% of the time but when he had his spooky head on, all I could do was hang on and hope it would stop soon! The best one was when he walked past a building site quite happily for months but when they took the scaffolding and skips away it took six months to get him past the new house that was there without going sideways with eyes on stalks. Then he'd go and surprise me by being brilliant when I least expected it. On the badminton ride one year a squirrel jumped out of a hedge and landed on his neck (a very long story!) and he just did a sideways shimmie, shook it off and kept going and even after getting hit by a van (no injuries thank god) he never ever worried about traffic.
 
away from home he is absolutely fine he is my take anywhere pone, he doesn't like change on his normal routes be it unattended bicycles, weeds that weren' there last week, flowers that have just bloomed, his shadow etc etc.

He is good on the main A road.
 
That's exactly what my boy was like. A bike was fine, unless it was on a path where he thought it shouldn't be. On a fun ride we did we went past an ostrich farm without batting an eyelid but when a field down the road that was always a crop field was re-seeded and later had sheep put on it it nearly gfave him heart failure! He was the same right up until the day he died at 27. I think maybe he was bored and liked to spice things up a bit!
 
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