Riding horse that's always looking for things to spook at?

[wench]

How do you deal with them? This is just a general musing, but one thing I would like to crack with my horse.

With this horse it's *mainly* a training issue, ie she needs more. We either have a fixation with one part of the school that we have to look at as we are going past, or if in outdoor school constantly peering at everything to see what we can spook at.

She has low calorie feed, as much turnout as possible at the minute, and a varied work routine as I can possibly give.

I want to be able to ride her so schooling sessions are a bit more productive ie not on the lookout for something spooky; as currently she's not between hand and leg.

I've tried circles, shoulder in, leg yielding, flexing away from the scary thing, none of which make the blindest bit of difference... Still carries on gorping at what ever she wants.

Vet is coming out in a couple of months for next vaccination and I will ask for eyes to be checked then; apart from that I'm pretty sure it's not a vet problem just a spooky horse that doesn't listen problem!

 

[be positive]

Until she is truly working in front of the leg she will be able to look or spook pretty much when and where she wants, if you can get her going from leg to hand you should find it easier to keep her attention on you.
It depends on how she spooks as to how I would deal with it, a sharp flighty type may benefit from plenty of faster work such as cantering in the warm up to get her forward and a little tired before working through, a less sharp one may listen if you throw numerous transitions in to a) get them working off the leg b) distract so that a transition is done before they can even think about looking, followed by another one before they have a chance to think again, basically it is down to the rider to be thinking faster than the horse, to react before the horse can, over time it is possible to get them on side using the brightness in a more positive constructive way but is is hard work and keeps the rider on their toes, if you are not concentrating 100% they will revert.
The use of poles can help give a focus, keep changing them around so they need to concentrate, you can use them in all paces, on a circle, go between them, serpentines etc good to give the rider a focal point to ride purposefully towards as well as interesting for the horse.

 

[cruzing]

My experience of spooking horses is that they don't work forwards into the contact properly and when I've fixed that the spooking stops.

 

[asommerville]

My spooky boy has really responded to the use of poles, really help him to concentrate!!

 

[maccachic]

How do you react to the spook? and is it reinforcing the behavior.

Is the horse getting plenty of salt its does make a difference to spooky behaviour.

 

[Theocat]

Mine is like this, but it's nosiness rather than spookiness. I move him around as much as possible - small circles, changes of rein, only ever a few strides before we change direction or go on to a new movement. It helps a lot and helps get him working properly as well.