how bombproof is your horse/what is your horse scared of?

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catherine22

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both mine are pretty good, takes alot to spook them (apart from a leaf!)
one is terrifyed of pigs (most are i think) and the other has an irrational fear of balloons!!
 
James is excellent with traffic and everything that should scare the living daylights out of a horse, but a funny coloured leaf and he's throwing one! He hates guns too and bird scarers.

Muffin is terrified of anything bigger than a car!!!
 
Seriously scared of tractors.

Laughably scared of ducks
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i would say mine is bombproof butwhen we go down u main road (which we have to to get anywhere) if a bus goes past and des tha gas noise he freaks out he nearly had me sideways in the road tday infront of a double decker i sh*t myself! other than that hes fine lol!
 
Baron hardly every spooks. If he does its usually at something really silly that has been there for ages, then he just usually sort of leg yields his way past it. He does nap however but doesnt nap at an object he just has confidence issues leaving the yard alone
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I am sending him to get sorted when he is better though
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Mine is pretty much good with everything. She does hate tractors and lorries and has to have another horse walk beside her. Dogs and pushchairs make her tense too. She has been known to spin and canter down a road (luckily it's fairly quite near me). But she happily walk past pigs, peacocks, footballs flying at her and cars with loud engines!
 
Norman is very good, loose dogs, barking dogs, car horns, tractors, lorries, double deckers, petrol tankers etc etc.....even really noisy loud pigs yesterday, he was alert and a bit tense but didn't spook....just when its windy he gets terrible! the trees are scary then!

Good with guns too, live near a naval base and firing range so he's accustomed to that, which is great and crowds of shouting people.
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he's a very good boy!
 
Only one thing has ever bothered my horse, and we take him to all sorts of places. What got him was a bloke walking down the road with a bag of golf clubs over his shoulder
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Don't know if it was the clanking sound or the sunlight reflecting off them as they moved.
 
Mine is not seriously scared of anything although takes the mic and spooks at things when she feels like it will hack out and have motorbikes, cars, tractors pass us will go past dumped washing machines and rubbish no problem and will then spook at a patch of clover on a track we are hacking down and have a real trauma over it!
 
i haven't found anything yet that scares my mare, which is pretty impressive for an ex-racehorse, i think! ducks flying out of the dykes beside us, huge low-flying jets, artics... coped with them all without batting an eyelid.
she's probably saving it up for something really minor...!
i had a totally bombproof-in-traffic horse (happily walked right up to a combine harvester) who was frightened of those huge silvery leaves you see in summer, not sure what the plant's called. they were the only thing that ever scared him. bizarre.
 
When unfit and laid-back (most of the time) Maiden is 99.9% bombproof... apart from that she ALWAYS jumps if a pidgeon flies off from near her. She looks suspiciously at them, she obviously thinks they are after her
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When fit she is still brilliant, but is more likely to find things to "be scared of" (aka scare mummy with). The one time she tried to bolt with me was when she spotted a green sack in a green hedge and decided it was far too much to cope with. She reversed down the road VERY quickly then tried to spin and leg it, and although she is a very strong horse (she's a middleweight IDx, 15.3hh) she is too polite really and I managed to stop her spinning. It took me 20 minutes to get past the bag though!
She's the perfect happy hacker, keep her less than fit and she's fine
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Berlin on the other hand is a nappy bugger anyway, he loves any excuse to reverse and snort and generally be a pain. He's fine in traffic and with all the usual scary things, but he has an actual phobia of trotting poles (really!) Odd thing...
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Pigs - haha ! Both boys met them for the first time on saturday. C - snorting, eyes like organ stops but eventually walked past (with me leading) ; Z meanwhile was body slamming OH into trees. Eek. Other than that only thing C spooks at is an imaginary scary piece of hedge he doesn't like on the way back to the yard. EVERY time...There's NOTHING THERE, DIMBO !!
 
HAHA!
my horse that is on loanl is absoutely teriified of donkeys, he trembles and shakes on the spot.

Apart from that my others are pretty much fine, aparet from obviously the scariest things like birds and rustling leaves and road marks!
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Kerilli - I always feel ex-racehorses can be the best in traffic as many are hacked to the gallopd from the age of 2 and see eveything! Our ex-racer's not scared of anything!

My horse thinsk he's scared of stuff but he isn't (although he did take offence to a tractor coming towards him witha black silage bale on it's 'spike' on the front - the first time he's EVER spun around with me! in 13 years!). My pony has a real dislike to golfers - or more there golf bags on wheels, he still after 14 years, doesn't seem to be able to comprehend why humans let these things 'chase' them!
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My sister's horse is not a pig fan and I incurred 4 faults at a intro SJ at the weekend cos there were pigs in the barn next to the school! I didn't have a clue but he did after we went over a fence towards the barn and he refused to go further (I eventually won the battle but was less than amused!)
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My ex-OH and his dad used to be able to come on 'hacks' with me on their motorbikes, and my horse will happily go on the road in the heaviest traffic.

But the scariest thing in the world for my horse is other horses, well horses smaller than him or spotty horses, until he sniffs them - then it's OK. Weirdo
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Dexter never spooks really! I think he has spooked about 3 times since ive had him last August!!
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Spider spooks at lots of things!! But mainly piles of mud or something in the distance things like plastic bags she is usually ok with
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I have a TB so the list is quite long and completely irrational...
Squirrels - obviously well known for their horse eating skills
Logs - seriously, he is absolutely pretrified of tree stumps/logs, this was the case when i tried to event him and still persists with hacking.
Benches - you'd think they were tigers
Writing on the road
Speed bumps
Rabbit holes
 
Very rare my boy does a proper spook more of a 'oh dear, what is that' type of thing
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He is pretty unflappable and good with the youngsters - it's just tractors on narrow lanes that he has a problem with but he is okay if I can 'park' him in a large gateway etc or even better if tractor stops and we can walk (jog) past them.

He is also suspicious of 'dead' wood, i.e fallen trees etc but I've heard a few people who have said their horses don't like it either, maybe because it was once a 'living' thing?? But he has no problem with 'dead' grass, i.e hay
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My other horse was unflappable by anything, GNER high speed trains, combines, highsided lorries passing at 60 mph, birds flying out of bushes, bags, road markings, bird scarers, road works, brollies, kids on skates you name it he's never batter an eye lid, because I put a a lot of work into him when he was a youngster not to mention his laid back character, to carefully get him used to things but without scaring him.

Unfortunately I've now got to do the same with my 3 year old warm blood....except he's bigger and stronger and of course its difficult because its more dangerous but its got to be done. I can't for life of me imagine owning a horse that you couldn't ride out or have to duck into the nearest driveway as soon as you heard a tractor coming...there's no escaping farm traffic, wagons and rubbish blowing about when the wind gets up specially I live, only problem is the ignorant people in vans, tractors and lorries that don't bother to slow down and actually make it twice as hard and dangerous to get them used to traffic, they'll never get used to it unless they go on the roads but sometimes it just too risky....and a lot of drivers will argue and say you shouldn't be on the roads unless they are quiet....what are you expected to do?
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Anyway...don't get started !
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My loan horse is a total wimp and spooks at pretty much anything - the main reason he will be going back to his owner in Oct!!

He bolts if he see's trailers/lorries/motorbikes/buses so is rather dangerous and does smaller stupid spooks at anything and everything. He even spooked at a pile of horse poo on the bridle path the other day. To sum up - he's an idiot!!!
 
Have got an ex racer that is unflappable hacking with both traffic of ducks or anything he's not bothered but my Welsh X TB is a wimp with ducks flying up or rattling trailers.
 
Abby can be spooky but never in a dangerous way she just stops but with a kick or a light tap with the crop (and i mean light) she goes past it. the only thing she really doesn't like is tractor an vehicles like that.

poppy on the other hand isn't scared of anything i can think of other than dead animals. she won't go out alone but thats because she's a stubborn boot who i couldn't control lol!!
 
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