what's your horse really scared of ??

Shysmum

Shysmum

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Just thought I'd ask following on from the hacking out a young horse thread !

My boy has recently been terrified of a long thin drain cover, and he has palpitations about being near the electric fence. Both a work in progress !

Previous horses have had the usual - tractors, lorries, birds, umbrellas......

:) sm x
 
Grumpy - water, be it a bath or a puddle
Mabel - clippers and vets
Grace - her own shadow, and Mabel
Melly - nothing much, apart from Mabel
Vector - sudden movements (people) and Mabel

Can you see a pattern emerging?:D
 
Nothing really! He'll (very) occasionally have a look at something or spook at a bird in the hedge & then the next time we're out he'll not bat an eyelid so I don't actually think he's frightened of the things he (very) occasionally spooks at!
He's a big brave boy you know!!!!!!!! I could hack that horse down the M1!
ETS - just thought he doesn't love cows but I think that's cos they try to race him rather than him actually being scared of them!
 
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Jeremy - ditches (but not all ditches, some bit massive 4' black one's he'd jump but we could have an argument for an hour over a 5" little scuff in the grass!)
Tucker - ice (had a bad fall once black ice once)
Romany - black tar lines on the road, leaves, crisp packets, men, pigs (but fine with obvious scary things)
Penny - umbrella's, white lines on the road, the vet
 
My new boy - nothing really (had him sice October so yet to find out im sure) but really cant think of anything he has refused to do/let me do to him e.g clip. He's never refused to walk past anything out hacking, we've had buses, trucks, motorbikes etc and he's always been fine. Yet to meet a tractor so maybe...

Where as the old man - Well I'd be here all day with his list but here are a few things -
I can clip him and things like that but on the yard you cant move the hose pipe near him he freaks, you cant tip out water buckets by him he freaks (yet a saint to bath! go figure!)
Out hacking he is a nightmare EVERYTHING is a potential threat: bins, buses, trucks, crisp packets, push chairs, umbrellas, kids on little bikes, the list is endless!! He is 20 this year and has never improved so dont think he ever will but thats just him :D
 
I also meant to say there's nothing at all handling, ground work wise that he's scared of - he can be clipped by one person with no twitch, sedation etc and that's a full clip inc face, bits & ears etc. He just stands for as long as it takes, no fuss!!!!! :cool: :)
 
Lucy isn't scared of anything. :D
Sometimes she'll jump around and be a little madam but just because she thinks it's funny :rolleyes:
The amount of times i've nearly fallen off her because something has made me jump but she has just stood there. :o Once a bird scarer went off right next to us it was behind a hedge right next to the bridleway and i haddn't seen it. I was hanging off the side of Lucy who haddent moved a mucel. I'm so glad noone was around to see it. ;) :D :D :D
 
Forgot this one - my last horse had a thing about alpacas (they bred them near us). Never worked out if he thought they were sheep with huge medusa heads on stalks, or if he was expecting to be able to creep past being ignored. Well neither ignored the other, fascination and terror on horse's part. We went past most days for five years, and that primal fear never left him :eek:
 
I have a ex-pointer TB, so pretty much everything!

His newest nemesis is his own shadow - this scary black horse always seams to follow him in the summer.
But his constant fears are - birds jumping out at him, trees looking at him funny, yellow grit boxes, road work signs, other horses (especially ponies), rubbish on the side of the road ....

Thankfully all he does is jump and huff at things - he doesn't do anything too dramatic, and for some reason although all of these stupid things scare him he is the safest horse I've ridden out in traffic or with things that are actually scary like tractors, dogs, scrambler bikes.
 
hmm let me think :p


Bicycles and lawn mowers if they are hidden behind a hedge. I'm sure she thinks they are going to give her a clip Tom & Jerry style :p :D


Everything else she seems to be ok with . . . . . . . So far :rolleyes:


She is half Welsh so I'm sure there's going to be something else :rolleyes: ;)
 
I always thought mine was bombproof until we started riding alongside a canal at our new yard. She cannot cope with canoeists, at all. She's so scared I'm not really too sure how to deal with it, especially as it's not really a situation we can recreate in a controlled environment. Bolting on quite a busy track isn't really ideal. On the upside, she's fine walking under the railway bridge as a train goes over and blows it's horn, as I discovered yesterday.
 
Mine is quite spooky to hack most of the time but nothing too bad thankfully. However, he is genuinely terrified of... wait for it... chickens.

He is also scared of goats, especially the ones with big horns, baby cows and lambs (especially when they all run in one direction as you walk past them), and balloons.
 
the advantage of having a piebald is that all the cows think he's their mum and you can sit there while it all goes on around you, as if you're invisible. Another one we currently have is bee-hives, which are just down the hacking track we use - now that's not the horse, it's me !! :D
 
Jasper is terrified of the measuring stick!! Random I know, but he shakes with fear.
Other than that just the usual - cows, crisp bags, skips etc
 
Lacey's scared of going without food!
As for hacking the only thing she will slightly look at is yellow cars, and even then all she does is flick an ear.

I had a little welshie that was scared of life ;)
 
My ginger one is scared of ticking electric fences. Thats about it. He only genuinly spooks when he can hear something but can't see it.
He is too lazy to be scared of stuff! He also knows I get angry when he starts to muck around and it all requires far too much effort!
 
My lads scared of fast movements from people, whips (You just have to say the word and he speeds up!!)he crushed an empty sadwich packet with his foot the other day and flew forwards by about half a mile. Apart from that nothing, he has a mad obbsession with cows and sheep!! Not scared just has to look, I think he used to be scared as he'd trot past the bull pen.
 
She's scared of the oddest things... she will walk past but lots of snorting and spooking... Yellow grit boxes, Chopped up wood, tree stumps.. basically anything where wood has been cut or a tree has fallen?
Oh and those boulders people put on their verges to stop people parking on them :p
 
Water.

He has a pond in the corner of his field that he'll wade in quite happily, but the puddle that forms in his gateway is apparently bottomless and filled with unthinkable horrors, in April I couldn't get him out of his field for over a week!:eek:

I tried food, leaving the gate open, lungeline, short rope, even an in season mare - nope, he'd march up to it, do the on the spot hopping thing whilst he built up the nerve, then courage failed him and he'd run away.

This is a 6 year old stallion by the way!
 
Most things, including those he has previously walked past 300 times without them attacking him... but he knows that grit box is just waiting for it's moment, so has to be watched :p

He hates lorries though, really really does. And bin wagons, and tractors, and skips, oh skips. There's a couple of quarries around our area and those big rattly quarry wagons/skips are the worst. He really doesn't know what do do with himself or where to run. Luckily they are mostly fab and often wait in the middle of the road while we get somewhere safe.
 
Hi there. Kelsi is scared of birds (all types), road signs and donkeys. Saffy doesn't like dogs or donkeys. Hazel had a massive fit when she saw a black miniature shetland in a field think she thought it was the beast of Bodmin!!
 
JustJasper said:
Jasper is terrified of the measuring stick!! Random I know, but he shakes with fear.
Other than that just the usual - cows, crisp bags, skips etc
Click to expand...

Mine is scared of the measuring stick too. I was told he was 16 / 16.1 when I bought him but I've no idea what his actual height is as I can't get it near him. He's not good with umbrellas either.
His biggest fear is metal detectors which he can't cope with at all - to the point he just goes into meltdown. He can obviously hear them even when the person has those headphones on as I discovered one day when I met a convention of them next to a bridleway. End result was me on the ground and him treading very hard on my left boob!
 
Both of our two are fairly fearless, though Stinky likes to give a token spook on the odd occasion, he is not frightened, just seeing what he can get away with and once told get on with life, he does.

He did have a tiny spook at the weekend, but in fairness, he was cantering round the show ring and some opened their brolly into the ring on top of him!

Cairo - devil donkeys - never to be trusted in any size - results in many dragon snorts and his old beady eye firmly kept on them.

Farra was not keen on jabs, but nearly two years on, with some treats and patience, she is now fine to do and stands quietly.
 
Clippers - needing sedation to be clipped

and on last night's performance whilst having a lesson, the letter A in black paint on the wall in the indoor school !!
 
one of them - absolutley everything and anything is fair game to be scared of.

the others are ok - one is petrified of clippers (i mean cold sweat and shivering type petrified) and one isnt scared of anything. she pretends occasionally but i know better!
 
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