Scared horse- what to do?- yobs scared her last night........

charlie76

charlie76

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Last night I was schooling my mare in the arena when some yobs threw fire crackers over the hedge at me which terrified her. They carried on even after me asking them to stop. My horse was so scared that she began rearing and bolting with me to the point where I had to get off.
I now cannot get her to the far end of the arena- she is physically trembling and terrified. Every time something make a noise she spooks and jumps. This morning I led her in hand and she reared when I tried to take her in that direction and if I did manage to get her to that end she tried to bolt off. what can I do to gain her confidence again?
 

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Give her some time to get over this shocking incident.

And presumably the police are now involved???????
 
god thats awful! i cannot believe that people can be so horrible! (well i can actually but you know what i mean!). Im no expert on equine behaviour but i think if it were my horse i would just concentrate on trying o get her down tht end of the arena, but not actually riding her. Take her to the arena with a bucket of her feed and let her stand at the end she is comfortable with and let her eat her breakfast/tea in there. You will need to repeat this at least daily (twice if you have time) and slowly move her feed bucket further ddown the arena unil you end up at the far end. It will take time but at least she would be doing something positive (i.e eating her food) where it happened. As i said, im no expert but i think that is what i would do to try to give her a positive feel in the arena. Im sure other people will have some ideas too!
 
I called the police twice but made no odds- I have made an official complaint to the police this morning.

I will take her out their later with the feed. I g
ot her to eventually, after 23 mins to nibble the grass but as soon as something made a noise she panicked( a crow on the light).
 
Try rescue remedy for her. One thing you can do for teh future is desensitization, introducing some gradually increasing louder noises to her always keeping things just within her comfort zone but gradually increasing the nose levels, playing music while she is in the arena will also help.
One thing we do here at the sanctuary when working with horses that have past history of fear is to help them lose that fear by bringing into their lives all sorts of stimulai.
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I'm appalled the Police did not act on this immediately...sadly horses and yobs are not top of their priorities
emw.
 
Try rescue remedy for her. One thing you can do for teh future is desensitization, introducing some gradually increasing louder noises to her always keeping things just within her comfort zone but gradually increasing the nose levels, playing music while she is in the arena will also help.
One thing we do here at the sanctuary when working with horses that have past history of fear is to help them lose that fear by bringing into their lives all sorts of stimulai.
I'm appalled the Police did not act on this immediately...sadly horses and yobs are not top of their priorities
emw.
 
Poor horse, what are these idiots like.
Have you a friend with another calm horse that doesn't mind going down that end of the arena who you could follow?
 
I'm so sorry to hear this has happend to you - how terrible!
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I'm no expert either but I do lots of work with riding for the disabled horses and we had a similar thing happen that scared one of our boys (he was in the indoor school when kids decided to keep catapulting rocks at the roof, he was petrified at the noise!)

I'd say give her time - don't try and push it too soon. she's had a terrible shock and I can't blame her for not wanting to go down that end of the arena at the moment, the memory of what happened is too fresh in her mind. I would probably leave it a day or so, so she doesn't feel pressured and stressed, do some ground work at the other end of the school so she gains her trust in you again then gradually extend the work over a period of days getting closer to where it happened till eventually she will be brave enough to go near there. Give her lots and lots of praise everytime she gets a bit closer but don't try and do it all in one go - she will just get stressed again and panick. You will overcome it, but it probably won't happen just like that, it will take a little time. I would say the main thing is not to force her, horses are flight animals and if in doubt she will run.............

Good luck, its an awful thing to have happend but at least neither of you were hurt.
 
I know this sounds quite extreme but if that happened to me I'd be finding a new yard, (if its livery of course) Once my tb is scared of something she takes a long time to forget and nothing as serious as this has ever happened to us. Also the further you can get from evil b'stards like them the better. Who'd do that anyway?
 
She'll calm down after a little while...feeding her in the arena and gradually sneak her up to the 'scary' end whilst she is relaxed - this will take weeks though.
Try to make schooling very easy and good fun to build her confidence - e.g. 10 minute of walking and halting with great oodles of praise at every little thing she does...then gradually increase it.
It may be worth trying to get her more used to loud noises - try to tape record fireworks and crackers if you can, and play them (really quietly) at feed time, increasing the volume gradually. This way she should associate bangs with good things.
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