Frustrated... how to get pone past a phobia of drains?

[ShadowFlame]

Bear with me. I don't think frustrated quite covers it, TBH. Pone is rising 5, I bought him as a blank canvas last September. Over the past 8 months we've built things up slowly, and he was hacking out quite happily in front or behind, in walk, trot and a bit of canter. He's always had a slight "thing" about drains, I'm not sure why, but he'd never really overreacted too much, just gave them a funny look and had the odd spook.

Anyway, we started short hacks alone a couple of months ago, just on occasion, and just out for 20-30mins at a time. We went out on one about 3 weeks ago, and he was good as gold. Went past diggers, skip trucks, lorries, no problem at all. It came to the home straight towards the yard, and I asked him for trot. Fine, no problem. Nice and collected. Perhaps it caught him by surprise, but he got "too close" to one of the drains and shied out into the road. He then shied at a drain the other side of the road and flew back, panicked, threw in a big buck and bolted. I came off, on the road, and he galloped back towards the yard. I skinned my arm pretty badly, as well as taking my knee pretty much down to the bone and damaging the ligaments. I hobbled back to the yard, collected pone (who was ok, luckily the road was closed off at the time), but was in too much pain to get back on. Big mistake.

Now ever since then, pone has a big issue with drains. He shies out at every one, and is nervous being ridden past them. Last time I took him out (with a confidence giver) he took off twice, and was excessively spooky. I know both mine and his confidence has taken a pretty big blow, but what's the best way to get him past this? If I lead him out, he will walk past the drains without too much of an issue, IF he's hiding behind me. If I ask him to walk next to me or ahead, we have a problem going past them. Should I allow him to "hide" for now? Long rein him, and make him face them? Have someone more confident try to ride him through it? Any advice would be appreciated, he's not nasty, just lacking a lot of confidence. I'm not sure whether to go back to basics, or try to push him through. Help, please!!

 

[Meowy Catkin]

Pick a drain that is on a quiet road. Lead him back and forth past the drain with him hiding behind you. Then try going back and forth past it with him not hiding behind you. Eventually progress to riding past it.

You may need to do several sessions but when I finally get fed up with my mare napping and rearing at our local Alpacas I got off and spent a good hour doing the above and she went past them every time afterwards.

 

[Kat_Bath]

This may seem like a silly suggestion on the outset, but hear me out. I remember reaing a book when I was younger, I think it was Animals in Translation, about how cows don't walk over cattle grids because of the difference in shades making it look like holes and even if there wasn't one and you painted lines, they would not walk over it because, I seem to remember, they see in 2d? I might be completely wrong. Anyway, if you have a yard, can you 'draw' a drain, with paint or marker onto the concrete and desensitive him this way? Groom him next to it? Feed him near it? It's too dangerous to do on a road and also, drains tend to be near the edge, as we all know, so I bet it can make them feel quite boxed in. Just a suggestion...

 

[*hic*]

Reminds me of watching a couple of ladies who'd decided to take their youngsters to the lorry park of a BE event to give them some experience, one of whom was dumped spectacularly by her horse when it panicked about a molehill, I can only assume it didn't read it right and thought it was a hole. Trouble was there were hundreds of them and it hardly knew where to put itself

However, I digress. For a wacky idea how about getting a biggish sheet of black plastic and getting him to learn to walk across it. Then fold it in half and do it again, then fold in half again and keep going till it's draincover sized. Then cut several draincover sized pieces out of it and litter them round the place and walk over and around them. Then take him and the plastic pieces to a quiet bit of road with no drains and put them on the road, play your walking over the plastic game, at this point he now doesn't need to walk on them - lots of horses are frightened of draincovers that rock. Then move to a spot with drain and put the plastic on top of the drains as well as elsewhere and walk him around, then remove plastic from drains so he can see them and carry on. Build it up gently over a couple of weeks though!