Has anyone succeeded in traffic proofing a scared horse?

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Tangaroo

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I have a 6 yr old who i got 10months ago. He had done nothing and had obviously never seen traffic. Initially he went into melt down at the sight of a car but he now is fine with cars and small vans , landrovers etc.
He is however genuinely terrified of big things coming toward him. If i can find a drive way to stand in he is fine and they can go past.
last week i met a cement lorry and my friend went in front and mine could not bring himself to follow. He suddenly tried to jump a wall into a garden on his left and when he couldnt he spun on the road and i came off. Very painful, luckily not the same injuries as Sarah-jane in CR.
I am practising at home with my lorry walking him past it when its running and leaving the tractor running in his paddock.
does anyone have any great ideas for helping the problem cos at the moment if i see something big coming towards us i turn round and go and find a drive way to stand in. This can make for quite worrying rides always wondereing whats coming round the corner. He wont even walk calmly past with my old boy between the lorry and him.
 
my old lad was the same with big thing, much like you i done the work at home my worse one was the village bus, i got the bus drive to feed horse carrots out of his window, explained my problem and he helped out with still driving at me but would crawl and if pony started being a prat would stop let me re gather pony and start again, it got to the point where i could squeeze past the bus, but in tight spaces if said bus moved forward pony would be like OMG its gonna get me!

feed him by your lorry drive it around him, and just keep at it, i found on the roads if i could get out of the way and stand pony so he was looking at evil lorry side on he could cope. if it was a rattling thing i talk to him very loudley and give him a fuss.
 
I worked with an utter menace on the road. I'd keep doing all the things you're doing to acclimatise him to your own vehicles, I'd also see if I could find someone with a field adjacent to a busy road you could leave him in for a week or so. I used to take mine up to the end of our driveway and feed him there, I also made a pen for him actually on the drive so he had to spend time with traffic noise. When I took him out on the road I had my husband and friends drive up to him and give him treats through the car windows and silly things like that. One thing I never ever did though was turn him away from traffic. If you do that you are teaching him that there is something coming towards him he doesn't like and it's ok to run away from it. If you can see a driveway ahead then great, go for it, but try never to let him run away.

Incidentally you say he's frightened of things coming towards him, is he frightened of things coming up from behind or does he accept that? Another one I had was terrified of them coming from behind but was ok if they were in front of him. I taught him first of all to turn through 180 degrees and look at what was coming then progressed to stopping and turning his head round to look, then to walking on and just turning his head right round to see what was coming. It was a bit odd, he'd hear a noise and his head would appear by your knee but he did walk sensibly on whilst big lorries were coming past.
 
My girl doesnt like buses, we was out hacking in April and one was coming towards us and we were trotting and the person I was with said did we want to walk, I said no keep trotting keep her mind occupied and focused on what she was doing rather than the bus. Unfortunalty it didnt work, the bus came towards us and she went mad, turned herself completly inside out. We went up down, round, sideways every way but forwards and eventually came to a stop in a ditch at the side of the road halfway through a bramble bush. It was very scary and how the hell I managed to stay on I have no idea! The bus stopped immedialty and after she has calmed down a little I acknlowedged the driver to thank him for stopping and he went to pull off and as soon as he started to move again so did we, I didnt think it was possible to get out of a ditch so quick, lol but my mare did. Anyway the bus was gone and we were in the middle of the road, she wouldnt move and I decided it was too dangerous to carry on riding her and cars were coming from both directions and it wouldnt off been pretty if she had kicked off again so I jumped off, as soon as I was on the floor I burst out crying lol, and started to shake. My mate jumped off her horse and rode mine home while I walked hers back in hand. Unfortunalty I havent been able to take her out again to work on this issue as in July she went hopping lame and has been on box rest ever since, she had surgery last week for a tear to the manica flexor and had swelling and effusion in the tendon sheath so will now be on box rest till at least Jan. But when Im able to start walking her out in hand Im going to work with her on the bus issue, hopefully she will get used to them and when I am back on board she will be ok with them, she has to get used to being ridden/ walked past them as we are on the local bus route and cant go anywhere without meeting one.
 
As your doing but also look into possibility of turnout next to a busy road. My land is adj to a fast busy road. It's a constant stream of cars, lorries, buses, emergency vehicles, tractors etc. A young mare I bought a few years ago spent the first 3 weeks at the very top of the field as far away from the monsters as poss. Gradually she'd graze nearer and nearer to the boundary P&R fencing. When I did start to ride her out still she got worried about big vehicles but the I purposely rode out looking for them as the more she saw on the ride the less they bothered her. On one hack we met 6 buses and by the 5th she was walking along like an old pro. My current youngster is fab in traffic but hates puddles. After going through a couple she starts to relax and doesn't mind so much it's the same principal with all things scarey - reassurance, leadership and trust.
Bear in mind horses do need to trust their rider so your horse may still be building up that trust with you. Carry on what you are doing, wear as much hi viz as you can on the horse and yourself as it should help to slow the traffic down a bit. Also try to ride out with a horse thats fine with the problem vehicles as your horse will get good vibes off them. Best of luck I'm sure with patience you'll get there.
 
Turnout next to a busy road if you possibly can. Our youngster had a problem with "big" traffic until she was moved to a field on the main road to an Army base. At first she would freak and bolt across the field but after about 2 months she would even have her head over the fence chewing on the cow parsley with tanks whizzing past just a couple of feet from her nose! Hasten to add she wasn't in there on her own but with two others who lived there and were completely unfazed by the traffic.
 
Sorry to hear you came off in the road. Make sure u wear some good hi viz and you sound pretty much like you are doing the right thing anyway.

I would continue and add in things like plastic bags ie a tarpaulin...horn, air brakes(buses are famous for doing this just as they slow down to be good)! Do this is the field try to get horse across tarp etc Keep at it. They will get better as it becomes normal. I agree never ever turn away though(fright and flight). Even as you come along side your lorry get someone to start it and the tractor. Mine had a funny thing about big metal man hole covers so we often ended up in the middle of the road! Now he is fine.

If you can hold your horse( although I dont think its a good thing to get off) but if its dangerous why not. Just make sure you get back on and continue(I would only do this as a last resort). Even experienced horses if they havent been out along the road for a while they can get a bit silly. As you know you just cant mess around though. But it is worth persevering as you will end up with a much better horse ie more versatile. All horses should be road worthy. I like the idea of feeding food from offending horse eating vehicles.
 
Thanks for the tips everyone. He is fine with things coming up behind him, just tenses a little but doesnt do anything. I know its not ideal to turn away from things but the traffic in our village will not slow down sometimes so if im far enough away when i see it coming its a question of having to get away from it. He proved last week he is prepared to jump anythiing to get away so i have to be aware of where he will end up if he goes sideways.
I will keep up the work at home with the lorry and the tractor and see how we get on. Unfortunately i dont know anyone with a field next to a really busy road. Will try and think of somewhere.
 
My old horse had an issue with slow moving large vehicles. When I tried him I hacked him out down a very busy fast moving road past lorries etc and he was fine. When I got him home I hacked him out down the narrow but occasionally busy roads and when we met a lorry he would try to either run up the verge if there was one or turn round and try to run away. I could eventually get him passed them but it would be at 100 miles an hour! He once ran down and along a ditch with me which was the last straw!
We turned him out next to one of these roads and I would only hack him out with 2 other good in traffic horses so he could be sandwiched between them. When I sold him he was fine with lorries and much improved with tractors although he would still rush past them and really didn't like them passing him from behind.
 
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