My first pony was a little welsh/Arab cross, I got him when he was four and was told he had never been ridden (just found out from an old cowboy that that wasn't true, he just dumped EVERYONE who got on him and was headed to the glue factory until I got him, glad I didn't know that 24 years ago, I might have been scared of him!) My ten year old self trained him that spring, and only had one real issue (getting him used to the sound of a whip so he wouldn't bolt if someone near me used one). That pony would go anywhere and do anything for me. We would load him into the back of the pickup truck to haul him to 4-h shows, I rode him down the roads, swam in the Puget Sound with him, you name it, we did it. I even taught him to lay down and let me dismount so he could roll in the sand on the beach, and then wait for me to get back on before he stood up again.
I currently own two Arabs, one was a sherrif's mount and a certified search and rescue horse. The other was a racehorse, I just took him through 20 hours of mounted police training and although he looked a lot more nervous than the other horses at the start of the training, he did phenomenally well. He is a very nervous, energetic horse, but if he feels he can depend on you he will literally do anything you ask. Sometimes I think he wishes he could climb on my back and hide from the scary things. I find the key with both of them is to be very firm, very calm, and flat out INSIST on whatever it is I am asking. They don't object nearly as hard as my Morgan mare (my true love), and they learn SO FAST!!
The downside of learning as quickly as they do is that if you are a nervous rider, you teach the horse to be scared, and riding a truly scared Arab is like riding a hurricane. You have to be their 'safe place'. If you are their safe place, it really doesn't matter how much they snort or look sideways, because they're just trying to say "hey, look mom! its a horse-eating cement berm! What should I do????" When you say, well of course you should walk right by it because everything I ask you to do is safe, they just walk right by, with a little more snorting. The one arab of mine, when he's nervous and I"m on the ground, will nudge me with his nose to try to turn me in the direction of what he's nervous about. It's pretty sweet really.... If I turn and look, and give him a pat, he gets quiet again and ignores it.
If snorting and blowing makes you nervous, an Arab may not be a good choice for you, but if you can stay calm and relaxed, by all means, go for it!
Just my 50 cents!
Kathy