Once a spooky horse - always a spooky horse?

[redandblue]

I've reached a crossroads. I bought my mare at the end of August last year and she settled in fairly quickly but from day one she has proved to be a real spook at her own shadow type. Even in the field. (Her eyesight is fine btw). She is 13yrs old and a been there done it mare, however, she spent a number of years in a cornish trekking centre and came to me quite sour and evasion tactics were her bread and butter She had some time off over winter and she is much happier and there is life in her eyes again but the spooking has not improved. I keep her on a busy DIY yard and although we have plenty of good hacking in the area we do have some scary things right on the doorstep (quad bikes, go carts, shooting, zorb balls and the like!) which is not ideal. I'm not ashamed to admit that being dumped a couple of times I have come to dread hacking out.
Anyway, I have been considering another yard. I've been to see it and it is quite lovely. It's on a private farm and there are only 12 stables. There is a sand school but it isn't floodlit so winter riding would be restricted but it does have amazing hacking! It's the polar opposite of where I am really and lacks the facilities and services that they offer. I would be very much self reliant and would quite probably spend a lot of time without seeing another soul! I am wondering if a change of enviroment to somewhere less busy will help? Is a spooky horse always a spooky horse? That is the question. Any advice/experience would be gratefully received.

 

[noblesteed]

Speaking from experience, I bought a horse that quickly became very spooky on a busy livery yard. Like yours he had a whole host of evasion tactics up his sleeves and spooking and dumping me was one of them. Turnout was limited and we only had haylage to feed. I battled with him for 2 years until my confidence was shattered, so I moved him to farm where there was just me and one other horse but year-round turnout. He had soaked hay and a fibre-based diet, lots of turnout and a quiet routine. He became a different horse.
As the years have gone by I have been able to feed him up more as needed but as long as he has turnout he is great. He is still sharp, but he stays with me if something surprises him. He's at a livery yard again now and settled without a problem, in fact he's one of the most sensible horses on the yard. He does regress if he's not ridden for a few weeks but soon returns to his sensible self.
So I don't think they stop being sharp, but the spooking can be reduced hugely by plenty of turnout and careful feeding. He'll never be a complete novice ride but he's got enough fun in him for me. I just think busy yards can be too much for some horses and they end up being tense all the time, a bit like us when we get stressed.
I think you should go for the new yard - you might find she settles well and relaxes a lot more.

 

[saddlesore]

IME yes. I've had two really spooky ones, and whilst you get used to it, their nature remains the same.

 

[ester]

Mine is 22, had him 10 years, still spooks just for the fun of it sometimes, still gets told off and gets grumpy if I've see the ear twitch and stopped him doing it. He is welsh though and I do think he used to be worse (took him about a year to settle into our 2 horse private yard properly having spent a few months at a v v busy, large DIY yard, no change when I moved him to a small, quiet, 10 horse DIY though).

 

[Cheshire Chestnut]

I've reached a crossroads. I bought my mare at the end of August last year and she settled in fairly quickly but from day one she has proved to be a real spook at her own shadow type. Even in the field. (Her eyesight is fine btw). She is 13yrs old and a been there done it mare, however, she spent a number of years in a cornish trekking centre and came to me quite sour and evasion tactics were her bread and butter She had some time off over winter and she is much happier and there is life in her eyes again but the spooking has not improved. I keep her on a busy DIY yard and although we have plenty of good hacking in the area we do have some scary things right on the doorstep (quad bikes, go carts, shooting, zorb balls and the like!) which is not ideal. I'm not ashamed to admit that being dumped a couple of times I have come to dread hacking out.
Anyway, I have been considering another yard. I've been to see it and it is quite lovely. It's on a private farm and there are only 12 stables. There is a sand school but it isn't floodlit so winter riding would be restricted but it does have amazing hacking! It's the polar opposite of where I am really and lacks the facilities and services that they offer. I would be very much self reliant and would quite probably spend a lot of time without seeing another soul! I am wondering if a change of enviroment to somewhere less busy will help? Is a spooky horse always a spooky horse? That is the question. Any advice/experience would be gratefully received.

Hello, No I don't think once a spooky horse always a spooky horse... to an extent. If your horse has a spooky/nerous nature then they will always have that, however they can become more tolerant of scary things through time and practice.

For example, I bought my then 6 year old Welsh D 2 years ago. He was incredibily spooky - 40% of it he was geniunely scared and 60% he was taking the pee. It took me a good 18 months to get the confidence to recognise when one was geniune fright and one was him taking the mick - he's very convincing when he wants to be! I decided that if he was a little bit wary of something strange, he would put on a huge act of being really terrified of it when he should have only really given it a bit of a wide birth. I couldn't even walk around the school track without him stopping, spinning, running backwards/sideways and bolting off just because there was a pole or a jump wing placed at the edge of the school. So much so I started to think he wasn't the horse for me and we'd never get on.

So I started to have lessons with an instructor I trusted. We did a course of scary objects such as walsking past umbrellas, over sheets, between fillers/plant pots. Don't get me wrong, it was hard and frustrating to start with and he was a nightmare. He's get himself that wound up and just spin and deposit me on the floor. However, slowly but surely we got there and the more he did it, the more he trusted me that these things weren't going to kill him. I made sure I hacked out with a calm, confident horse with an equally as calm and confident rider on board and that helped a lot. Then we started hacking - just short routes at first and sometimes even used to take someone on foot.

Over the course of the last 2 years I've asked him to do more and more. Started out with baby steps in the school with 'spooky items' (as mentioned above) and now we hack on our own past all sorts of things: skips with flappy stuff hanging out of them, cows running at us in fields etc etc. and he is great 90% of the time - so great improvement. I had a proud moment about a month ago when we were hacking alone and came accross a sheet on the bridepath. After a bit of snorting and eyeballing, he walked over the top of it! I could have died with pride!! Two years previous to that I would have been on the floor and him galloping off into the distance. Don't think you can ever have a horse that's 100% bombproof no matter what you say, they are an animal with their own mind and will get scared at some point, however you can do lots of things to improve it

Good luck and don't give up!!

 

[Cheshire Chestnut]

Oh and just to add - he still has bad days in the school (see my last thread about him being free to a good home last week!), where he uses his 'spookiness' to take the pee over and over again if he's in a bad mood. But at least I know now it's rare that he is actually really scared of something and can tell him off for being a monster instead.

We still aren't quite there with fillers under jumps either - they are something we can work on for the next two years

 

[JillA]

I had a horse who spooked at things no grown up horse would see as threatening (one a sideways leap when he felt me putting my offside foot in the stirrup!). He was magnesium deficient and 10 days on Magnesium Oxide showed me the sane sensible horse he could be.

I've got some good quality MagOx, if you are ever heading south on the A41 I can let you have some for £5 - not a lot to check it out and see if it helps really.

 

[irishdraft]

I have two spooky horses mare & gelding backed both of them & owned them for 11 & 8 years respectively the gelding was really bad as a young horse never come off a horse so many times but he has improved over the years but still can b spooky. The mare has never improved sometimes I think she's getting worse ! I don't let it stop me doing anything I think you do get used to it over time .Both my horses live out 24/7

 

[exracehorse]

Yes. My TB is spooky. Ridiculously so. Even after 4 years of ownership. Even now he jumps in the air when I give him his breakfast in the stable. It's just a bowl! I'm used to it but it's annoying. Hacking is difficult.

 

[Annagain]

I think it depends on the nature of the spooking. If it's a lack of confidence in, for example, a young horse this can be overcome. If however it's because a horse is naturally highly strung and is 'looking' for things to spook at, I think that stays with them.

Mine is sort of one of the latter - nothing awful, just jumps sideways now and again, especially if he's on his own, or maybe a bit of a spin, in particular early in a ride when he sees a spook as a chance to head for home - it's never worked Regular work, a good strong trot when I feel he's in one of 'those' moods and no reaction from me is the best way of keeping it at bay. He spooks, he gets no attention for it and is made to work harder. He's not actually frightened, just looking for ways to be naughty through a lack of work, too much energy and boredom.

 

[OWLIE185]

I believe that if they start off spooky then they will remain spooky. (Some spooky horses become less spooky when in company)
However I am a great believer in hacking horses out daily for nice long relaxed hacks as nothing is better than this to get them used to their surrounding environment and to desensise them from all things spooky.
I am sure that keeping your horse in a nice new relaxed yard with plenty of safe hacking will make things much better for you and your horse.
I wish you the best of luck and hopefully in your nice new relaxed your your horse will be less on it's toes.

 

[googol]

I think it probably depends on the horse but ime once spooky always spooky. My friends horse is sooo spooky she has
tried every calmer / technique / trick with no improvement. He is 13. He's sooo backward thinking and lazy but spooks at everything. Really sharp spooks. Definitely takes the fun out of it for her. He just doesn't seem to be clever enough to process things so his first reaction is to spook which also leads to him getting un necessarily wound up. Doubt he will ever change.

 

[redandblue]

Thank you everyone for your comments. The consensus appears to be that spooky horses don't change their behaviour - we just have to learn to live with it. My thoughts were along the lines of if I take her somewhere a little less hectic perhaps the spookiness would lessen. From your persepectives it seems that this will be unlikely to change her behaviour.

Googol: your friends horse sounds precisely like mine. She too can be lazy and is not forward thinking and things can escalate quickly with her when out hacking especially. She's the drop (the shoulder) spin and dump kind of spooker - I'm getting better at sitting them but she does catch me off guard once in a while. The unpredictability of it unnerves me. It's not the 'obvious' things either. In the school we have it almost cracked. I can tell she's going to spook long before she does - it's like slow motion - she looks for stuff to spook at and this is just taking the mick as she isn't really frightened. Her reaction is so different when there is genuinely something that scares her:it's those spooks that are the hardest to go with.

Thanks again for comments - much appreciated.

 

[redandblue]

Just an addendum to my last post - it would seem that the decision has been taken out of my hands. Vet came to vaccinate my other ned and we got onto the subject of possibly moving liveries. As my spooky mare has recently proved to be a ridiculously good dooer he has stressed that taking her somewhere that has unrestricted (herd) grazing would be laminitus waiting to happen. Of course he's right and I don't want to have to muzzle her permanently or bring her in on her own so she is probably best where she is on her own acre paddock that I can restict and control. I will just have to live with the spooks.

 

[Sussexbythesea]

Yes and no. Yes they will always have a propensity to be spooky (mine was transfixed and snorting at my riding hat the other day) but you can train them to not react so badly. I think this is actually pretty typical of lazy not forward thinking horses, i.e. they are not listening to the rider. Mine used to whip round and try to bog off. I know some people will be against this but firstly I changed his bit from a plain jointed snaffle to a Dutch gag for hacking - that gave me brakes and stopped him tanking off and safer for both of us. Once he knew I had that he was less inclined to try in the first place we just had the turn around not the bog off bit to deal with.

I also did a lot of spook busting in hand and in the saddle with different obstacles and things like walking on a tarpaulin this was more about not so much about de-spooking him as such more about both of us learning how to deal with things when they appeared. But the thing that I think really made the difference was when I moved somewhere where it was safe to ride him through it. By that I mean not getting after him but taking the time to quietly and calmly re-present him to anything he took a dislike to and not being anxious about e.g. a car coming or slipping on a road. It was also not about punishing him if he was afraid. You say you know when she is going to spook so you need to do something e.g. get her attention on you by doing a leg yield or shoulder in. I will do this past things that he finds upsetting like dead traffic cones and black bin bags

Also wouldn't touch any sugary feeds, haylage or high-grain feeds, I also give mine RelaxMe which is a combo of brain and tummy supplements. I think it makes a difference.

I now hack him for miles on my own which I couldn't do at all when I got him 10 years ago and he rarely puts a foot wrong but it is still there under the surface will come out particularly if we go somewhere new.

 

[JillA]

Try the MagOx - you might be surprised and all for just a very few £££s http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...m+oxide.TRS0&_nkw=magnesium+oxide&_sacat=3153

 

[Red-1]

No, I believe they can be trained out of it.

Mine was mega spooky, in fact 2 event pros returned him to the importer as they said he was too spooky to ever event.

He has been put through a program of work, and is the nicest horse to hack or compete. There is always a risk of a flashback, as he expects punishment sometimes, even though that is not from me, but most of the time he is the most relaxed, happy horse.

Key areas are making sure there is no pain, making sure the horse knows he is not expected to make his own decisions (that leads him to know that other stuff is none of his business) which starts with ground work simply leading and standing, obedient to aids (so he can be controlled and redirected if something does get his goat), building up resiliance to stuff with plastic, whip noises, traffic etc, and making sure stable management is correct (as in turned out, not fed too much etc).

 

[Suechoccy]

Just an addendum to my last post - it would seem that the decision has been taken out of my hands. Vet came to vaccinate my other ned and we got onto the subject of possibly moving liveries. As my spooky mare has recently proved to be a ridiculously good dooer he has stressed that taking her somewhere that has unrestricted (herd) grazing would be laminitus waiting to happen. Of course he's right and I don't want to have to muzzle her permanently or bring her in on her own so she is probably best where she is on her own acre paddock that I can restict and control. I will just have to live with the spooks.

Not necessarily so. An acre of overgrazed grass will be sugar-rich new tips and being on her own, she has nothing to do except stand and nibble. Unlimited grazing in a large field with a herd will mean she moves about much more, burning calories, she spends time grooming other needs and being groomed (that will calm and settle her being with her own kind) and the grass she's eating will be longer, so older and less sugar-rich. The perfect-sounding hacking and quietness of the new yard sound ideal too.

 

[Rivendell]

I think they always retain some spookiness but can definitely improve. My mare was incredibly spooky when I got her - she literally spooked at everything, even though she had been on the property her whole life and knew it inside out! Once we had developed a bond and she trusted me, the spooking drastically reduced. It is still there, but comes out much less. Wait and see what happens when you have bonded. Hopefully she gets better!

 

[flirtygerty]

IME yes. I've had two really spooky ones, and whilst you get used to it, their nature remains the same.

This is not true, we bought a TB, ex racer, according to his passport 12 yr old, (EDT put him at 20 yrs +) very spooky, reared, spun and was a pita, sold him on, fast forward 2 yrs and he was gifted back to us, EDT found serious problems in his mouth, while he doesn't have the lifespan left to correct his teeth, he is much more comfortable, so much so he is now a novice ride, a total confidence giver when ridden, still not happy having his teeth done but getting there, his spooking was pain related

 

[Exploding Chestnuts]

The other thing is that you should/could improve your riding skills [eg jumping lessons] to make the incidents less dramatic, not everyone falls off. Try riding an inch longer out hacking, don't fall asleep, and watch his ears. Keep a finger in the neck rein and probably use a running martingale, not tight but not long either.
Cut out sugars, NO molassses [as found in pony nuts] increase fibres and add a magnesium calmer for a month eg Feedmark Steady up. Ride regularly, do a bit of work in the school before hacking, and have reular lessons, even 30 minutes private every two weeks will make a big difference.

 

[Spot_the_Risk]

Their nature doesn't change. My 23 year old still spooks, just not as violently as he did when he was five, and if his shadow is ahead of him he is reluctant to keep up with it!!

 

[SarahWeston]

I think you can make a real difference with some good groundwork and desensitisation work but it has to be done in a measured way. One of the key things that hasn't been mentioned yet is that your horse is an individual paddock. This can often contribute to spokiness since the horse has to be 'on guard' al of the time even if she has other horses in the fields around her. Horse benefit from the close company of others and it makes them feel a lot safer.

 

[spacie1977]

They can change. My lad spooked at EVERYTHING when I got him. It was exhausting riding him, we'd get kicked out of group lessons for being disruptive and I thought we'd never be able to focus on anything enough to improve his schooling and for me to enjoy him.
But being the stubborn goat I am, I refused to let him stay spooky. When he spooked I'd tell him off and make him go past what it was he spooked at again and again until he was bored of it. I then started to look for opportunities to de-spook. Eg if there was a wheelie bin left out, or road work signs I'd make a point of taking him to see them and using a reassuring voice as he had a good look. I'd flap plastic bags around him and stroke him with them, and make extra noise whilst doing things around the stable. Eventually he's learnt to trust me and whatever I say is safe. He still looks at things and will occasionally freeze and snort, but it's rare and I feel completely safe on him. I also put him on magnesium oxide as our area apparently has a deficiency of it in the soil, and that's made a big difference too in how tense he feels at the start of a hack.

 

[Crugeran Celt]

I bought mine as a 5 year old, he was afraid of his own shadow, literally. He is now 13 and still exactly the same, he is excellent with traffic and things you would think make a horse nervous but little things like leaves blowing or a cat stretching send him into orbit! I honestly don't think he will ever change but he is a Welsh D and having spoken to many d owners it does seem to be a bit of a trait of the breed.