Scared of... miniatures? Weird phobias/obsessions!

Denbob

Denbob

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So a funny thing happened the other day... Apparently D is fascinated by my friend's miniature horse and the riding school shetland! At 16'2 and still growing it's absolutely hilarious to see him prancing around like a t*t with the two smaller ponies just completely baffled by how wound up he is!

What's the strangest thing your horse is scared of/fascinated by?
 
Most horses are initially afraid of minis - at least in my experience. "It looks like a horse, smells like a horse, "talks" like a horse. Yet is doesn't look like a horse as I understand a horse to be." I've had the oddest most normally confident horses completely floored in initial introduction to a mini. They work it out over time.
 
Horses wearing rugs while being exercised. She slammed the brakes on in a warm up recently and looked a someone whose horse was wearing a lovely exercise rug. She's stared at others a couple of times since for the same reason, and snorted as well. She just doesn't understand it. She is not a spooky horse in the least, but this concept baffles her. :D
 
Mine was amazed by sheep the first time he saw them. In the early days when he had not long been broken in and I was hacking him round the lanes we went past a field with sheep and lambs and he did a funny little whinny when he saw them, almost as if he was saying "ah, how sweet." He was born and brought up on a stud farm, and he saw cattle as soon as he arrived here, but I suppose he had never been exposed to sheep.
 
My filly is obsessed with the cat! Makes it hard to work on her sometimes cause she spends the time prancing about after the cat. Cat is always following me, so yeah.

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Sultan and Minto were joined but a little coloured Shetland. Sultan by that point must have been hitting 30. He was horrified! Spent 2 days staring at pony unable to relax or eat. Minto by this point thought there must be something up. Eventually I dragged them down the road to speak to Shetland. The normally unflappable sultan was wetting himself and telling me he really had to leg it far away. Eventually got him to pony and he tentatively sniffed pony, went “aaaaaahhhhhh it’s a pony” shorty followed by “bored now” and never bothered again!
 
Er.. Scared of the following:

Cats
Dogs (he'll attack dogs actually if he feels threatened, hates and is scared of them)
Pigs
Tree stumps
Anything new around the outdoor arena
Anything new or has been moved around the yard
Trailers
Small children sometimes
His massage pad
Jump wings if they are outside of the arena
Clippers
Sometimes the farrier
The vet if they are male
Crows (only crows, not birds in general, he's fine with pigeons flying at him or over head in the indoor arena, but can't walk past a field with crows in it without bouncing or snorting)
Trees if they are moving a lot because of the wind
Bikes, as in pedal bikes, although he doesn't really like motorbikes either but he won't spook at them

He is obsessed with..

Poo. He HAS to stop and sniff and snort over every poo to and from the field. He will sniff poo in wheel barrows, in the arena too. He is absolutely obsessed with it. He will lie with his face in his own poo over night too, something I hate as he's grey. :(
 
Most bigger horses are scared of shetlands because they quite simply never see anything so small! Gray was terrified of my shetlands when he first met them! Then he loved them then he became terrified again when I had the audacity to ride one of them! Then they became a game!
 
My mini Shettie scared a big horse at show once. I was heading in one direction, bloke on a big 17hh+ heavyweight hunter comes towards us, horse spotted my mini and was having none of it. Planted itself, snorting, then the whole 'piaffe/passage/I'm gonna spin round and try to p... off at any moment' thing. I offered to walk her round a different way but he said to just wait. It took some persuading but he got his horse past her eventually.

My youngster when I first started to lead him out in hand used to jump the white lines painted on the road. He would step over a pole on the ground like normal but he couldn't grasp that you could do the same with the white lines.
Same youngster, I had him out on the lane once and a tractor/trailer came towards us. It's a narrow lane so I stood him in the village hall car park while the tractor went past. Never even gave it a second look. But then caught sight of his own reflection in the glass doors to the hall and scared the absolute stuffing out of himself.
 
Yes, minis are a fairly common phobia.

My big lad loves minis....except for the coloured ones - they are actually just tiny horse eaters. But even cow coloured Shetlands are infinitely preferable to **Donkeys** :eek3: :eek3:
 
My older Appy lives with our texel cross sheep and used to live with three Ryeland sheep, but she is terrified of Herwicks, which we sometimes meet out hacking!
The Old coloured cob we had once set about our other three horses, which shocked us somewhat, as she began kicking them, we realised it was because they were wearing rugs, as was she.
A friend had a gelding who was scared of large stones at the side of the road.
 
TelH said:
My youngster when I first started to lead him out in hand used to jump the white lines painted on the road. He would step over a pole on the ground like normal but he couldn't grasp that you could do the same with the white lines.
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A horse I ride at work will jump white poles without even thinking but anything else white on the floor - white paint on roads, snow clumps or bit of white bandage on the gallops are terrifying! If it was any other colour other than white he can cope with various things on the gallops! Weirdo horse!
 
I had an old TB who was terrified of gates lol he was what you would call "bombproof" hacking, but riding past a gate...hed be on the other side of the road. Thankfully he stopped and stood stock still when asked, so if something was coming i would be able to stand until the way was clear then we could do our little gate dance. Odd animal.
 
equi said:
I had an old TB who was terrified of gates lol he was what you would call "bombproof" hacking, but riding past a gate...hed be on the other side of the road. Thankfully he stopped and stood stock still when asked, so if something was coming i would be able to stand until the way was clear then we could do our little gate dance. Odd animal.
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Yes, I had a mare who was terrified of gates - it was most bizarre. She would actually jump them without issue, but walking past them could be a huge drama. When I first got her I had to lead her into the school and then would be stuck schooling up one end when I got on because the gate end was a no go. Occasionally you would be leading her around the yard and end up with an equine panic attack on the end of the rope because she had spotted a gate that was open when it should've been closed or vice versa. I always assumed that she had had some gate related trauma when young (I bought her age 5), but she may have just been a weirdo
 
my 17.2 absolutely loved the pair of mini's at our old yard. they used to go out together in the indoor school and had a great time playing. he used to lick them to death. they thought he was wonderful. they were really really funny together.
 
my old mare was terrified of mini ponies, donkeys and goats our yard was next door to a place that had all 3 and it was real good fun riding past when they were near the fence.

my 2 Arabs are fine with minis but one can't stand bicycles he snorts at them really loudly when one is coming towards us and we often do a lovely spin in the other direction, once he snorted so loudly the cyclist jumped out of his skin and nearly fell off his bike the guy was so scared he turned his bike round and went in the other direction.
 
Alpaca. There are paddocks of them on one of my regular rides and the first time Maggie saw them, she was rooted to the spot. They all came up to the fence for a look and every time she took a step, they took one too.

It took us awhile to get past them the first time, but now she considers them "friends" and looks for them. Lovely animals - if I ever had my own place, I would have a couple.
 
Bananas! :D Mary was convinced I was trying to poison her when she found one included in her dinner.
 
Yes to alpacas (Maddie) and gates (Molly). Mol also doesn't like marker stones that are on our nearest common - 'regular' stones are fine but the ones marking the byway are terrifying? No idea.

Maddie likes chasing cyclists if they overtake us on the road :o. She thinks it's a great game though we've terrified a few of them if I've not managed to pull her up before she catches them :p.
 
Shire horses! My old Connie was very spooky and had a list of things she didn't like, but all other horses were fine until we were at a show and came face to face wih 4 shires wearing decorated harness - bells, plumes, swingers, brasses etc. she freaked and for the rest Of her life would snort and blow at shires and other big black horses even if they weren't in harness. I assume she was worried it would spontaneously appear on their backs!
 
I had one had a thing about black and white sheep - white sheep = fine; black sheep = fine but combine the two on one animal and that was a completely different story. It was a complete pain because one of our best hacks took us past a field of Jacobs.

My mare is not great with baby buggies which is difficult when you meet them on a narrow track; large prancing, snorting horse and small human are not an ideal combination. She''s not the best with cycles but my on-going programme of educating them to shout out as they approach us is working wonders for that. On the other hand she's absolutely fine with tanks and helicopters.
 
I had a pony who was the least spooky pony I've ever known. Nothing bothered her, ever.

Then one day, about 8 years into our relationship, we were hacking and out of nowhere she took complete exception to a tuft of grass in a field. She was absolutely petrified of it. I can only assume there was something in it or some smell she didn't like, but it just amused me how over the top she was about it. After that incident, she never spooked at anything again.
 
scats said:
I had a pony who was the least spooky pony I've ever known. Nothing bothered her, ever.

Then one day, about 8 years into our relationship, we were hacking and out of nowhere she took complete exception to a tuft of grass in a field. She was absolutely petrified of it. I can only assume there was something in it or some smell she didn't like, but it just amused me how over the top she was about it. After that incident, she never spooked at anything again.
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Yes mine randomly spooks at grass tufts including one just after we had passed to a tank surrounded by soldiers on exercise, they thought it was hilarious (so did I).
 
pansymouse said:
Yes mine randomly spooks at grass tufts including one just after we had passed to a tank surrounded by soldiers on exercise, they thought it was hilarious (so did I).
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That same pony actually encountered about 20 jogging soldiers one time, they emerged out of the bushes and just stormed past us. Pony didn't even bat an eyelid (I jumped out of my skin!)

Joe, my wonderful but spooky welsh part bred, had a wonderful incident with a for sale sign. Riding along our woodland bridlepath, which has a tall wall that separates it from the road, I spotted a discarded for sale board from a house that someone had obviously thrown over the wall. It was there as clear as day as we approached it, so I assumed he had seen it. Apparently not. The next thing I know, we were facing the other direction and I was sat on his head!
 
My 5 YO actually spooked at the hedge after it had been cut, the long grass had been flattened, she was mortified. That and bluebells. No other flowers bother her, just bluebells.

All of ours spook/snort/poo there pants at the neighbours Shetland. My big lad is the most scared, little Shetland popped his head over the gate, Harry did a massive spook, and fell over. Like Bambi on ice.

MY ID 5 yo is wary of sheep( getting better), a tad scared of cows ( getting better), fascinated by other horses poo out on hacks, and simply cant take her eyes off any other horses we meet out and about.

Skips, tractors, heavy machinery, scaffolding ,plastic bags etc etc are all ok. They even walked passed a recently run over badger with its teeth showing.

The most scary thing we encountered out on a hack was one of those telescopic cranes carrying a trampoline( swinging in the wind) . It was heading right towards us, then stopped and turned into a field full of cows. the cows where fascinated, the horses poo's there pants. Still to this day, don't know why the farmer was giving the cows a trampoline
 
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