If you have/had a traffic shy horse or pony, did they ever become completely reliable?

[Tiddlypom]

Pony will never reliably be 100% in traffic.

How experienced is this friend with horses? If she was experienced she would already know this.

 

[maya2008]

Pony will never reliably be 100% in traffic.

How experienced is this friend with horses? If she was experienced she would already know this.

Experienced but has only had/seen ones that were nervous without cause, so with exposure they were fine (or at least mostly fine, and these are horses with adult riders). Friend saw mine but only in pony’s late teens and on quiet roads with an adult rider, so pony appeared ‘fixed’ if that makes sense.

So there we are, me saying ‘I really wouldn’t’ and friend saying ‘Oh it will be fine.’ Made me wonder if it was me being overly cautious or whether there’s some magic fix we had never done for ours. Pony is obviously very inexpensive.

 

[Lucky Snowball]

I don’t think a pony like this will ever be 100 percent. There will always be something they haven’t seen before which could panic them.

 

[Goldenstar]

Nooooo the Mum is mad to even consider it , the only pony that I consider buying a child that was not good in traffic would be the FEI dressage type that was looking at a life going from the stable to the school and back .
My horse is an arse in traffic it was one of the reasons he was for sale .
Its perfectly manageable if you are a purposeful bold rider without a fear chip that is the horses boss ,he will never be trustworthy, it suits me in a way I find hacking boring it keeps it interesting .
Hes an interesting horse to work with ,he has a complex personality type and is an unusual ID .

 

[Annagain]

Monty was Mr Perfect in every way except traffic. He had a bad experience with motorbike, a glazing van and a big pane of glass (entirely the motorcyclist's fault) and after that he had a thing about large vehicles coming towards him. He was in no way dangerous as he'd just freeze and shake bless him but he very obviously hated it. He was much better in company and, if we had time, we would ask the driver to stop and turn him round so they came past him rather than towards him and he was much happier.

As an adult it was manageable but not that pleasant. I'd be very concerned a child could be scarred for life by something similar, not to mention the pony not being able to take confidence from a child in the same way. There's an added issue here though - as an adult I had a certain level of authority when asking drivers to stop and 99% listened. I'm not sure a child would have the same authority. An adult leading would but that would only work for as long as the child is on the lead rein. I also think drivers see a kid on a small pony and automatically assume it must be safe or the kid wouldn't be on it so they take more risks around them.

 

[Wishfilly]

To be fair to friend, she isn’t suggesting putting a child on it until it is 100% in hand. So no children will be harmed in the making (or not) of this pony. The question is more about whether it will ever be 100%.

Is she/the child fine potentially having nothing to ride out all summer? Or for a year? Or for longer? Or is she imagining this to be a 4-5 week process and then everything will be fine?

If she's after cheap, wouldn't it be easier to buy a young pony with no known issues? Does this pony have a serious history of winning in the show ring or similar?

 

[nikkimariet]

Nope.

This is my first with one who is tricky in traffic and he is genuinely terrified. He got a lot better with regular hacking on roads in solid company by sadly one of those horses is no longer here and the other was sold. I don’t have anyone else to ride with and he is probably as bad as he was when I first had him. It’s really frustrating.