What's the stupidest thing your horse spooks at?

Pisture the scene.....

Oldencraig, dressage test, young horse on his 3rd outing.

The Bell goes and off we set, BF happily videoing at the indoor school entrance standing with friend.

finish a 20m circle and down the long side, and into a spook followed by rooting and snorting like a stallion, threatening to make a dash off to the left........caused by a black lady who had decided to watch our test, I thought it was flattering that she wanted to watch and he was embarrasingly a twit! poor lady!

he did get over it and come home with a 6th so not such a bad thing!
 
Out on a hack today having a lovely canter down a grass track and next thing we were stood in the plowed field snorting, and what was so scary.... Feathers someting had killed a bird and there were feathers on the floor lol
 
Thistles (especially the flat kind)
Hawthorne bushes with blossom on

He also used to jump speedbumps. Initially in an anxious way then, once he got to know that individual bump, quite calmly with an 'aren't I clever' air about him.

He did eventually stop doing it when one was installed just outside the yard gates.
 
hahahahahaha some of these are so funny!!

B is rather odd. He ALWAYS spooks at the mounting block in the school. I mean, literally every time we pass it, he points his eyes towards it and shuffles away. So weird.

He used to be terrified of a little old donkey at the old yard which I thought was rather odd.
 
Bella rarely spooks but yesterday she did a magnificent spook at a pile of dirt and rock. Evidently there was something very menacing about it. :rolleyes:

She's also suspicious of people walking out on the trail. I suspect she's wondering what happened to their horses and imagining the worst - "Oh my god, they ATE their horses!" :p
 
My horse spookes at puddles, but to be honest I can't really tell him off for that now - I spent years trying to tell him that every puddle we came across was NOT going to eat him, making him go through.
But he still looked, I still told him it wasn't going to eat him.
Until the fateful day when he hesitated, said 'ok' and it promptly ate him. No kidding, it must have been 3 feet deep but looked entirely innocent, it was a huge deep rut caused by 4x4's - I even got me feet wet! Poor boy. Never has believed me about the dangerous things since!!! :D
 
When she's in season:
Her own shadow (no joke!)
Different couloured tarmack on the road
Different coloured sand in the school (if part of it is wet and other parts not!!!)
Holes in the road.
And many more things!!!!
 
My boy spooks at most of the things mentioned here, including his own farts. Today we were passed by a jcb digger, he didn't bat an eyelid, but then there were some slabs next to a bush, he jumped a mile. Defo pony eating monsters.
 
Thistles, she jumps across the road and then has to jump back because she doesnt like the wall at that side of the road. To top it all she has been known to spook at her own poo that she did on the way out!
 
The pigs and geese, which on a weds is just before the big pile of rubbish bags (a particular hate of hers)...cue snorting, jogging in the hedge then normally go past them at a canter and bloody salt and grit bins.....i have told her time and time again that she doesnt need to leap into the hedge on the other side of the road to pass them and that they dont have monsters hiding in them.....but she likes to play it safe! Daft hoss!
 
those flying things, what are they called? you know the ones that like flowers, have pretty coloured wings and come from caterpillars, big scary things with fangs and everything - oh thats it, butterflies! Damn scary beasts they are, at least the size of her eye and they just fly right by her - hoiw dare they?!!
Some puddles are very scary but others absolutely fine, not worked out the difference myself but she knows which ones can be trusted and which can't!

I love my horse!
 
Hevs said:
Another vote for boulders here - and our new yard's drive is lined with them so we spook out of the yard every time we go for a hack
Click to expand...

Another vote for boulders and stones painted white here.
Plastic bags can be blowing about and if they blow towards us, it's even better because she doesn't have to go so far to see if there's food there. :/

Kask barrell - I thought we'd got over this but I had to get off the silly moo and lead her past one today as it was in the field, beside the single track. Silly pony did a full spin and legged it. This is how I first fell off, so not chancing that again, I led the silly highland past while she danced and snorted at the end of line before doing a half half-pass and a leap past it.

This is the pony that was the confidence giver as a 6 year old to several 14 year olds
 
I can hack my old one down the busiest road with the biggest lorries - I could hack him down the hard shoulder of the motorway, but if there is a small patch of grass that is a bit different to the rest of the grass, or God forbid a crisp packet, he will turn himself inside out!
 
The same tree, at the same entrance into the same field that he makes his way through to every day. Unless the shetland goes through first then it must be ok (he's a 17hh wuss).

While I'm on him we can pass any traffic but if we see a recycling rubbish box that's terrifying a leaf rolling across the ground - well that must mean we are under a full blown attack from killer leaves!!
 
another one that spooks at a shadow especially his own, he is really frightened of it :rolleyes: oddly other than that he doesn't spook at anything oh well that's silly foreigners for you
 
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and they say horses are clever! mine hates trotting poles, yet he's done them 100 times and has an amzing jump. we have 2 walk over 1st wiv a lot of encourgement or we get a sudden stop or spin sideways. and its the same every time we move them. had been cantering over 2 yesterday and he knocked one a little bit, came round again and he had a huge fit, spinning round and nearly havin me off!
he hates anything blowing in the wind, banners, rugs, coats, rosettes!
he is so curious he was sniffing in a bucket of water infront of him while he was tied up and he knocked it over and then tried to run backwards away from the water flowing towards his feet.
if u change a jump at all, like put a pole on top of a filler or between 2 planks he will stop. he is v.scared of fillers despite having jumped the same 1 100 times b4.
he is great wiv water and steps and not bad wiv ditches but show him tyres or a log and he is v.scared.
yet he coped with a carrier bag blowing across the road 2 feet infront of him, a man spinning an umbrella over his shoulder. so many "scary" things.
 
Nothing. That is the stupidest thing my horse spooks at. And when I say she spooks at nothing, I don't mean she never spooks, I mean she actually spooks when there is nothing visible (or audible) for her to spook at. She also spooks at people. This has led me to believe that she may need spectacles. You know, so she can identify between the friendly granny plodding towards her and a horse-eating vampire-dragon-banshee with dreadlocks and horns. That I could understand her spooking at, but a normal human being? She is weird!
 
On the roads, and around the village my horse is bombproof and doesn't bother about anything, except...... CHILDREN arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

He has a problem with walking toddlers, to children up to about 7 years old, and if they are skipping, singing or waving at him, or in groups then he freaks out even more!

I don't ride during the school run times anymore, as this has caused a few problems, and a few worried parents!
 
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