What's the 'scariest' thing your horse has dealt with quietly?

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pennyturner

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Lots of posts on here about inconsiderate traffic, barking dogs etc causing horses (and owners) to panic. I'd like to hear your stories of relaxed, confident horses going about their business with a level head in unusual circumstances...

Just what are they capable of putting up with?
 
Mine is pretty relaxed and confident most of the time. He used to have an issue with push bikes but have got him over that now (and I firmly believe it is my responsibility as the rider to deal with that issue, not the cyclist). He's not massively keen on big noisy tractors on narrow country lanes but then not many would be. Otherwise, he will mostly carry on about his business. I took him to Somerford Park for a XC lesson in March; they were digging up areas, putting in new jumps, there were tractors, diggers, cranes, workmen, concrete mixers, flapping fencing, all sorts, and he just carried on jumping.

Last horse was pretty unflappable out hacking too. He barely batted an eyelid when an idiot taxi driver flew around a blind bend and missed us by about a foot.
 
My horse hacks around the industrial estate for part of our hack, she is foot perfect with huge HGV's flying past her on both sides of the road, with bin lorries stopping and sorting out the bins, once when a lorry tipped rocks etc just behind the hedge she merely flinched. Also very good with tractors and buses, any sort of traffic really! Doesn't bother with bikes.

In the school she can be a spooky beggar!
 
We will be doing pony rides at the local fete tomorrow...right next door to the bouncy castle and fairground rides. There will be balloons and loud music, with people everywhere. They've done it before, and should be fine.
 
Im on one of the racehorses at work just now and we have just walked under (and got soaked by!) One of those water cannons that water the tatties! Gotta love the cobby one! And yes, he doesn't care that I am fiddling with my phone, reins looped over my wrist.

Ive been past car crashes, had cars crash next to me, tyres blow just behind me, got caught up in a flock of sheep being moved, rounded up sheep! Thats always good fun! you name it I've seen on an in work racehorse and they've not turned a hair!

And people say racehorses are psychos!
 
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A couple of unusual things spring to mind with Merlin: two little girls were on one of those big garden trampolines with the nets round them on the other side of a 6ft fence right next to the road I was on. Every time they reached the top of their bounce and could see over the fence, they yelled 'HORSIE!' as loudly as they could ...

And once, on rounding a corner, there was a work van parked up. Next to it, in the middle of the road, they'd taken one of the metal covers up and a man was lying with his front end to the waist down the hole and just his legs sprawled on the tarmac, calling instructions back to his mate in the van.

Both times, dear old M just looked mildly surprised ...
 
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Holly, who is 9 months, dealt with being in the paddock whilst I walked her over poles, a beginner on the lunge, 2 other horses going mental because she was new, my mum panicking about the main psycho Max, running me over (which he never did, i had the lunge whip to scare him off XD) and the dogs barking and being overall pests without ANY fuss.

She also walked down a relatively quiet dirt road that was particularly busy one day and didn't stop even when the cars didn't slow down past her. She didn't care about the cows in the paddock on the side of the road but the kangaroo's scared her a bit, because they move and don't make noise as my sister said XD
 
My old tb, hacking out one day and we were passed by a motorbike, bike turned its engine off but restarted behind us and misfired, my TB went NUTS, he totally freaked out and it took him a long time to stop panicking when we saw motorbikes.

About a year later I was hacking him out on my own and I heard a bike behind us, I looked round and saw it was a couple of vintage bikes (extra noisey and shiney) and the road was fairly narrow so I flagged them down and trotted up the road to a safe passing space.

Well, it turns out that it was over 25 vintage bikes, ones with side cars and passengers plus a couple of vintage noisy cars and bless him the little sausage stood just off the road watching them, he was a coiled spring but he stood there and didn't even think about spinning and running. I have to say I was DAMN proud of him!
 
Oh, also once when I was working in the riding school we had a hen hack to take out, a mixture of riders and none riders but about 12 in total, a couple of staff on horse back and a couple on foot too.

We were riding down a narrow bridle path, river on one side, wall on the other, the only way you can go is forward or back.

Now the thing you LEAST want to see is a helicopter LANDING the other side of the river!

I have to say every single horse behaved, I was so utterly proud of them!

Then we arrived in the village only to be encounter what my pony though was the scariest thing ever... MORRIS DANCERS! :D None of the others batted an eyelid but as she was at the back she was convinced they were going to get her! It was highly amusing!
 
There was a huge tracked lumber crane working alongside the bridleway we were hacking this spring, swinging a 20" tree through the air. Duke passed it calmly at walk/trot on the way out, and canter on the way back. He gave it a 'that's interesting' look when he first saw it, but seemed to decide it was just a funny tractor.
 
The most recent thing that springs to mind is a big hedge-cutting tractor that was the other side of the hedge. Pony was slightly on her toes but walked past just fine :).

She also loves cyclists - if one comes past we usually end up trotting after it so she can say hi and make friends. The only fear that I can't seem to get her over is wild round bales (where they've been baled and wrapped but are still in the field) which usually result in us reversing past the offending field at high speed.
 
I had a livery which was next to a military base - and I mean next to - i.e., within 200m. One day whilst schooling 4 apaches took off and came directly overhead - there wasn't time to do anything except grab a chunk of mane and pray. She looked, but was completely unfazed. To this day I don't know how it was possible!
 
Yard is a few miles from an RAF base that used for training. The planes have a flight path they are meant to stick to (not meant to fly over certain residential areas, including our yard) but always end up overshooting and flying extremelyyyyyy close to the yard. They are hugeeee noisy fighter jets as well as cargo planes, but the horses tend to not even notice. The lady who came to try my horse for loan a few weeks ago couldn't believe that horse and I hadn't flinched an eyelid at all.

The geese that she passes everyday to be turned out though, they are killers when heading out on a hack!
 
We had gun shots the previous week, and i was very impressed how K just had his ears pricked but flicking between listening to me singing (keeps me calm and i think it helps the horses) and where the shots were

But i did make sure we went to the top of the lane before coming back (we had one spin try and go home)
 
Mine has stood quietly while a convoy of two huge tractors and a combine passed us. On several occasions while a twin rotor raf helicopter came over low. While the air ambulance landed near by, and while a helicopter turned its rotors on to take off just a few metres away. She is fine with chainsaws, power tools, roadworks, skip lorries, diggers, balers, fence posts being banged in by a mechanical hammer thingy, hot air balloons, marquees, hog roasts, bonfires, live bands, pigs, trains, cricket matches, moto cross races, vintage car/motorcycle rallies, marathon runners, remote control aeroplanes, carriages, donkeys, peacocks, alpacas, walking over plastic. She's pretty much bombproof really, but we make a point of exposing her safely to as much as possible.
 
Couple of things spring to mind. A police car passing us at about 60mph, the ambulance behind slowed down, why couldn't they? B just jogged a bit and went back to bimbling along. Hot air balloon; low enough to see the occupants clearly, B just looked a tit, I was thinking we'd probably be ok as long as they didn't turn the burners on, which they did.. He just looked at it and carried on looking up at it every so often for as long as it was visible. And one of the scariest things was a lightening strike in the field behind us as I was bringing him in one night. The rest of the horses in the barn were squealing and whinnying but B just stood there, looking around with a 'what the **** just happened?' look on his face.
Very chilled thoroughbred.
 
My boy lead the way through the tunnel under the motorway on the common! He wasn't even that bothered, he was looking to try and find what the noise was but that's it.
He did however spook at 2 people sat on a bench 20 minutes later! Divvy! :)

A riding school horse years ago had a fridge explode on the other side of the arena fence (stupid yard manager had put an old caravan on the fire). He carried on trotting quite happily!
 
I got lost when I was hacking my horse to a new yard and ended up having to ride down the A142 in rush hour with lorries and all sorts coming whizzing past. Even had a truck with one of those huge boats on the back with cars in front and behind it with flashing lights. Ethel didn't even flinch, I hated the lorries coming flying past and kept leaning away from them but Ethel couldn't have cared less! Think she thought it was way more exciting then boring old country lanes lol :)
 
When I bought my 4 y.o. up to his stable last night there were two pigeons in there who started flapping around madly and then made a dive for the open top half of the door where he had his head through looking into the stable and he didn't move a muscle just let them fly out over his head!
 
The two that CM coped with very well - much to my delight - were one, a full sized steam engine on a single track lane and two, a just landed helicopter that was winding down. It had landed in a small paddock that was next to the road we were riding on.

She had a minor meltdown (but only a small one and I was in no danger of coming off) at the car with a flat tyre being chased through the village by a police car (with sirens), but luckily we were by the pub and scuttled into the car park, where she turned to face them and then did her best dragon snorts at the speeding cars.

Oh the scariest that she dealt with was a lorry coming round a blind bend at speed on the wrong side of the road. She leapt sideways out of the way and saved us, if i'd been on my bike or in my car it would have been a head on collision.

We've also had a swan take off from under the canal bridge that we were walking over, people walking along the towpath next to the bridleway with a canoe over their heads, swans flying into power lines, bullocks cantering over, we've also rounded up loose sheep on the road, met groups of dirt bikes, groups of rowdy teenagers doing their DofE... loads of stuff.

She's not keen on alpacas, but is wary rather than frightened. The one thing that really, properly frightens her are dogs that get low, growl, snarl and leap.
 
Chloe stood so calmly on the wagon on the way back from a dressage comp when said wagon broke down at the entrance of a very busy roundabout, took about an hour for help to come and then poss nearly another hour for the guy to fix it, I was so worried she'd panic due all the noise of the traffic etc but she didnt, just carried on eating her hay, riding in the school however when a leaf blows along the ground is a different story!
 
At this time of year mine have a lot to contend with as we are within the area of the Glasonbury festival, so hacking to music, roadblocks on our narrow lanes which have few road signs generally now they are everywhere, helicopters overhead pretty much all the time, festival goers driving extremely interesting vehicles, they enjoy stopping to chat with the security guards and I think they are happy with hearing music most of the time, the first year they experience it can be interesting but they soon become old hands and take it all in their stride.
 
The pony I used to ride stood like a rock while a car passed him so close, the wing mirror ran through his tail...

He was a London pony though, don't know how well he'd have dealt with something really scary, like a cow! :D
 
Luckily my boy deals with everything quietly - his standard response to scary things, no matter what, is to freeze and snort - so I just sit there letting him be frozen and snorty. Once he relaxes, he will walk on no problem. However if I try and move him when he is frozen, he will rear. So I don't, unless necessary - I already know he will try and rear so I can deter that whilst trying to manoeuvre out of the way of scary item!
 
I was out driving my old girl when a fire engine came up behind us, full blast and sirens blaring. Just pulled her up in a tiny layby about 4ft off the road, engine never slowed or switched off, but she stood like a rock and couldn't care less. Another time we were doing driven rides at a school fete and a football got kicked straight at her, hit her tummy and bounced around her feet a few times, never bothered despite having no idea what it was due to the blinkers. She was unflappable almost all the time, the only thing she ever got mildly excited about was half buried black bag - flapping round her head was fine, but half buried definitely meant it would eat you :-)
 
Many many years ago, hacking out, lorry crashed into a tree right next to the pony my sister was riding. Said saintly pony looked at it, and took the surprise opportunity to eat the grass next to the still spinning wheels.
 
People up the road were renovating a windmill so had covered in a tarp. Gale blew it up like an enormous flappy flag and the spookiest pony we own walked by like it was a daily occurrence She was out hacking on her own too. It was one of the windiest days of the year that day
What I thought would scare them to death was being on the runway when the Red Arrows did a full display forty feet above their heads they watched with interest then went back to stuffing their faces
 
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Scariest thing? Not sure if it counts, but a dentist once took two wolf teeth out without sedating him and he just stood like a lamb.

When he had the lameness work-up for his suspensory diagnosis there was a massive thunderstorm and a huge clap of thunder sounded directly overhead, complete with sizzling fork of lightning . . . vet and I both jumped out of our skins and Kal just stood stock still - which, for him, is a very big deal.

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