Spooking in arena

[Highflinger]

I have a 6 year old native pony. He is green and I am a nervous rider.
I am having lessons so we both improve and I think we are progressing slowly but today in the arena ( we were not having a lesson) he was quite spooky at one end. He was fine for the first 20 ish minutes - we did lots of walk trot transitions and some leg yielding & he was listening but suddenly at one end of the arena he stopped dead and tried to spook away from the side - he reluctantly walked forward stopping every couple of strides trying to leave the side but once we got to the long side went on again in trot but when we came round to the same spot again he was he was reluctant to go forward but didn't actually stop but moved away from the side. I then walked round the spooky corner and he was fine and changed the rein and waked and trotted on the other rein and he was fine. I changed back and he was fine the first time round but then again spooked at the same place - this time shooting away from the side and cantering up the area for around 10 strides. I kept going and went round the "spooky" side again and he was ok but tense. I trotted some circles the other end of the arena and then approached the spooky side again and again he spooked - not much just jumping a few feet side ways and I kept my legs on firmly and then went on again. I then walked him round the spooky side and he was fine so ended things there on a good note.
There was definitely nothing for him to spook at and I have noticed in our lessons after about 20 mins ( lesson is 35 mins) he does some minor spooks at random places in the arena. I am a little concernd the spooking is getting worse and it some sort of avoidance tactic.
Hacking he is generally great and not the spooky sort and only ocassionally does a small spook at something you woud expect a pony to spook at - dog jumping out of a bush - pheasant flying up etc.
I dont want this to escalate - any suggestions?
Thanks

 

[SpringArising]

If you're nervous it might be that you're making him worse. My horse is a spooky sod in the arena - particularly down one end where the horse-eating jumps are stored, so I do 70% of my work around that area. Loads of circles, making him bend around the leg, keeping him focused on me and not what he's scared of etc. You need to be firm and repetitive!

 

[Denbob]

A friend of mine had something similar with her horse, she found keeping him active and engaged, working fairly hard down the non-scary end and then allowing him to walk on a free rein or 'rest' towards the spooky end, worked for her with her boy.

If you tense up down that end, or make it a major focus, or 'punish' him for spooking often you can create a sort of spiralling effect and the horse develops a negative association with that end of the arena on top of his original worries. Make the scary end something he associates with 'switching off'. Slowly build up to working as normal, however her horse developed quite a long-standing problem prior so you may find that taking a no-nonsense approach and desensitising as it were works best as a 'nip it in the bud' situation/.