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

Chilli loves most minis!
This is her baby Buzz, she likes to nibble his ears when he is outside her stable.
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cobsarefab said:
Yoga balls... don't ask.
Click to expand...

That definately needs an explanation!

OK so my project horse is scared of shadows. When I lunge her in the arena at night she tries to trot *round* her own shadow.

A metal stripping blade is a MASSIVE no go, she absolutely flips. Any metal noises, like if I am doing her headcollar up and I have the lunge line on my arm, if the buckle of the lunge line clinks on her headcollar she freaks.

Clippers, absolutely not. Took 2 days to get near her in a stable after I tried to introduce her to my tiny little battery powered trimmers.

She is fascinated by water on the floor. I was washing her tail last weekend and she was absolutely mesmerised by where the water was going to when it had hit the floor.

The stand that her foot goes on for the farrier is a real worry, but once her foot is on it she is fine (again this hatered of all things metal?).

Old retired girl has a real phobia of lone leaves. She will walk through piles of leaves, but a lone leaf has obviously gone rouge! :D
 
I have to say my new giant doesn’t appear to be particularly spooky about anything in particular, yet! Pretty amazing given his Welsh genes! He stood there and let the cows lick him!

He would love a miniature all to himself I’m sure, especially if it could live in his stable with him. He is the most inquisitive/friendly horse towards other animals I think I have ever owned.

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My old bombproof to anything horse was terrified of those petal overeach boots that seemed really popular a few years ago .
It was the noise they made as the horse with them on went past or anywhere near him , made warming up in the collecting ring at shows 'interesting ' sometimes 😂
 
Henry is scared of everything, especially people and parked cars (moving cars are 100% fine, they're only scary when they're parked :D ). He also likes to stick his head into things and sniff them/blow on them, but then gets scared of the sound his breath makes on them!

Rosie had some weird exceptions! She was terrified of minis, or pretty much any pony under 12hh. Also on her list were XC jumps if we were not jumping them, especially brush fences (which funnily enough were her favourite fences to jump!). This was a horse who never stopped at anything and schooled up to 1m10 XC, but try and get her to trot a circle around the fences and you'd be snorting and going sideways and refusing to get anywhere near them! Her other one was this one house on our regular hacking route. She went past this house at least once a week, if not more, for YEARS, but still almost every time we'd have a complete song and dance about going past complete with reversing, bucking, snorting, leaping sideways, trying to spin... Only ever that one house, and we could never work out why she took such an exception to it, there was nothing obviously disturbing or different about it! Oh and also rugs (especially fly rugs) that were not on her or another horse and numnahs not underneath a saddle were terrifying! Made trying to put rugs or numnahs on her rather interesting at times! (we worked through putting them on eventually, but she never got over the fear of them if they were hanging on a gate or on the floor or something) Water on the floor from the hose was another one. Puddles, XC water, streams, ditches were fine, but when you tried to wash her she'd be desperate to try and escape the tiny trickles of water that were on the floor. And finally the farriers tools/footstand. I think it was the noise they made, our farrier had to keep his tool trolley far away from her and not move it, and also be prepared for her to leap off the footstand and scare herself by knocking it over. We tried for years to desensitise her but it never really worked.
 
The mini Shetland which lives somewhere near us: if he spies it in the distance, game over.

Horses and carriages are also a no-no.

Foals out in the open are terrifying. Foals in a stable are fine and must be sniffed, groomed and chatted to over the door.
 
The big man is terrified of Shetlands/minis. Not unusual at all, except he lived with one for 2 years. He also flipped at some Scottish Blackface sheep...again not that unusual apart from the fact he lives with sheep all year round. Idiot!
 
Mine LOVES poo! Every single poo must be smelt. She also loves dogs and cats and will follow them around for ages.

sheep are snort worthy however lambs are mini devils and cause her to tremor when passing
 
We had a Hackney/Welsh cross who was scared of anything white, lines in the road, dressage boards, snowdrops and on one memorable occasion his own front feet :) I bought a sheepskin to sit on in the cart, all four ponies were scared of it so I left it hanging over the gate in their field to get used to it. Returned after a few hours, 3 were grazing happily and ignoring offending sheepskin, Hackney X was still staring in horror with a neat semi circle of poos behind him:eek:
 
Unaccompanied wheelie bins - the ones sitting quietly by the side of the road. Ones that have a human in charge and that are moving about are fine and need to be investigated.
 
Diva is chill with cyclists going past her down the foot path but mother (me) on a bike? Bloody terrifying, that is. Same with me lunging Rosie, apparently, because she gallops around screaming whenever I try. Fine with Rosie being stabled, taken for walks, played with in the arena. But lunging her? Noooooooo.
No idea why, but it's quite funny to watch.
 
Round hay or hay ledge bales, wrapped or unwrapped! Its a nightmare out hacking in the summer if he spots a field full in the distance. I have persuaded him to walk up to them/touch them and eat from them many times before but he is still scared of them.
 
Water troughs. He's ok with his own at home but snorts in horror at any other water trough, anywhere. I can't get him anywhere near them.
He used to be afraid of almost everything- he was a butterfly spooker, white line, stone, big leaf, blue flower, oil on road, you name it spooker. But after 9 years he's over most of those terrors. Obviously, all jumps still scare him - unless I jump them first and then he does and then we can do it TOGETHER. He's a great big Nelly.
 
Benches. We can jump the xc versions just fine but any bench by the side of the track which we regularly hack down is terrifying. We recently came across a bench which was partially hidden by a bush and that resulted in a complete Welsh-style melt down.

Also scared of stones, stones that were there previously but are no longer, wheelie bins, pig corner and bridges with running water cause yet more Welshie panic attacks.

And everything is always far scarier when she is in season!
 
My mare used to be terrified of ponies, particularly minis. On one of our first hacks a helicopter landed in the field next to us and she never batted an eyelid, yet then proceeded to freak out at the next field because there were two mini Shetlands. When I moved her home I got a section A as a companion. You'd think we had turned a tiger out with her, she spent a week running away from it, with the poor little pony following her trying to make friends. They did end up friends, and it got her over her phobia.
 
My boy is terrified of black and white cows. He is fine with every other colour, and lives on a farm with cows ( brown/ cream/ black ) with no issues, but if they bring a black and white one on the farm, he is petrified.
Hes not just a little bit spooky, he is completely panic stricken.
If I spend about 30mins quietly working with him, I can get him to stand next to it and relax enough to start grazing, but the next time he sees it, hes back to sweating/ shaking/ trying to get away from it.
My YO very kindly found a buyer for the last cow, as I was going to have to move my boy to a new yard, his reactions were so bad, and it was becoming impossible.
Kx
 
My 5yo Connie has decided that trotting poles eat ponies, nothing else can explain her extreme reaction at our dressage lesson last night :(

Fiona
 
Not sure about phobias but can confirm mine is steady to SNAKES!

He's not that happy about humans he doesn't know, as a rule. But the dodgy-looking guys in camo jackets with rifles we met the other day (rabbiters), well, they were clearly friends.

If anyone's looking for a stage-Irish horse for a lucrative film career, just let me know....
 
I had a mare that was fine with white lines on the road but could not cope with yellow ones. We got stuck in a bus stop for half an hour once and only got out by a huge leap onto the grass verge. My hacking companion was walking up and down past us but no chance the mare was going to follow over the lines.
 
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