Scariest most ridiculous thing your horse spooked at?

Npsouth said:
My tb mare is completely unphased by any type of traffic, we can go past HGVs, passenger loaded buses, trains and bikes. However, she will frequently spook at single flowers growing out of hedges, any fresh tarmac on the road, changes to brickwork in walls!
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Same. Front loaders, slurry tanks, a tractor rally we got stuck in the middle of, milk tanker letting off the air brakes by accident, no problems whatsoever.

Someone dropped a tissue on the verge?! 💀💀😱💀😱 Littering is absolutely horrifying.

And miniature ponies also horrifying but I think she might be right about them. One popped out of a hedge at us one day (one we knew, as he used to be at our yard) and she has never moved so fast before or since.
 
HopOnTrot said:
Current horse will hack past any vehicle if it’s moving (and I mean ANYTHING), but if they stop she will plant and has to be led past.
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We get this sometimes as well. Think it's a bit of "it's not supposed to stop, why is it being weird 😭" Everything has to obey The Rules According to Sadie.

Sometimes tho if a car stops and they have their windows down, the rule is that they're supposed to give her a treat. My friend gave her a treat out the car window ONCE three years ago but it went in the Rules and can't be removed.
 
asmp said:
I used to keep mine on a military camp. A rumbling tank passing by would be fine but a group of marching soldiers was terrifying - reckon he thought it was a multi legged creature!
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Mine has an aversion to runners, how dare they be on the road on 2 legs, tiny TB brain cant compute 🙈
 
Lady Gascoyne (the original) had a fire extinguisher at the end of her stable block. Every day she would walk past it on the way to the field. Then on the way back from the field to be tacked up and ridden. Then on the way back from being ridden. Then on the way back to the field. Then on the way back in at night. Every day. For FIVE YEARS.

And every single time that she walked past, it she spooked at it.
 
My 18.3hh'er did a 180 spin on two legs and practically climbed over the 16hh substantial cob walking behind us because a shetland was trotting over on the other side of a fence.

Dex is unafraid of anything, squeezing past a tractor with it's fork in the air and round hay bales on the back up a single lane, fine.. donkeys, lorries, bikes, other horses cantering past, air brakes, kites, shotguns, change of tarmac, singular flowers, dogs going at him.. but the only thing he will give me rope burn over is the table next to the school being on its side.
 
Had an eventer that jumped anything from any angle and was bomb proof to hack out.

Some blokes in a car threw a full can of beer out of a car at us hitting his rump and he didn’t react. A turkey flew out of the bushes into his neck, no major reaction.

However, alpacas and kangaroos even in the distance…………definitely not.
 
My OH is a bit scared of horses but for my birthday this year he booked a hack for us around cirencester park. We told them he was nervous and it would just be a walking hack. We went out as a 4, employee in the front then us 2 in the middle and another employee bringing up the rear on a livery horse that was being rehabbed and restricted to walking. As we come out of the track across some woodland the horse at the back spooked at a treestump that a few days earlier had been a fully grown tree! It spun and cantered off the way we came, OHs horse rushed forward into ours and everyone had a bit of a "what the he'll happened " moment. OHs horse started cantering over the ploughed field, I managed to head him off and we all screamed at OH to SIT UP!! He stayed on but it's safe to say he's not in a rush to get back on a horse again. 😔
 
My sons ex polo pony, who he got when he was 13 to progress at PC /polocrosse, Sasha, was a lovely mare on hacks and in school, but try to walk on a hack through the village on bin collection day and she gave a dressage display as good as Valegro , only on bin day. Obviously the brown and black bins on pavements were monsters waiting to swallow her up.
 
I've only ever fallen off on the road twice, both Archie spooks. The first, we'd just hacked along the main road and had several lorries, a double decker bus, a JCB, a fire engine complete with sirens and flashing lights (they turned them of but were already close to us when they spotted us) and a supercar at top speed go past us and not a flicker. Turned onto the quiet lane home and I turned around in the saddle to talk to my friend. The next thing I knew I was in the hedge with Archie looking down at me. The culprit?....A beer bottle that had the audacity to lie in the middle of the road. I wouldn't have minded but we'd already been past it on the way out :rolleyes: .

The second was more forgivable. We were wandering down the lane when all of a sudden a goat leapt out of the hedge right in front of us - literally about 1m in front. I crapped myself too. He (Archie, not goat) spun one way, hit the bank then spun back the other way and I was off. The goat was on a tether and the hedge was on bank higher up. He was hanging himself so I had to shove him back up the bank before legging it after Archie who was 30m up the road waiting for me.

There was plenty Monty didn't like but he was more of a freeze and shake guy than an active spooker. The only one I remember was when we were jumping. We had been over a jump with a filler several times. The horse we were sharing the lesson with took a dislike to it so the instructor removed it and propped it up against the side of the wing. We now could not go within 20m of that corner. 5 minutes later, filler back in place all was well with the world.

Wig has only ever done a few tiny spooks, nothing memorable!

The only time Eb ever spooked was when a squirrel jumped out of a tree and landed on his neck. I definitely forgave that one.
 
smolmaus said:
I solved the bin problem by giving pony a treat if she goes and looks at bins. Guess what other problem I have created.
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Ha ha! Mine have to give all bins a thorough inspection - sure that has come from having them as youngsters so they've "helped" with household chores like putting the bins out or pegging out washing with us as part of their training.

Thinking about it I'd say that these ponies have always been quite curious at all sorts of mad human stuff but will react to more natural things - their instincts I'd guess "that bird has just flown away, is there a tiger there .......I'm off, it ain't getting me"
 
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