Why does spring have to come every year??

It sounds like a silly question, but if you're on my horse, the first several weeks of spring weather turns my mild mannered sweet TB gelding into a monster! Yesterday it was near 70 degrees. I had the day off, so I'm thinking nice relaxing walk in the fields. He still has his winter coat, so I figure he'll be too hot to expend energy.

WRONG! We started out alright. He was looking around, but walking along willingly. We got the top of the largest field, and were still well within sight of the barn when he spotted something in the distance and went into frozen statue mode. It quickly blew up into an "I wanna go home" tantrum. I lost count of how many one rein stops, bucks, rears, spins, and backing up occurred, but it was not the relaxing ride I was looking for. I'm surprised I came back mounted and again love love love my sticky synthetic saddle. You just don't come out of those things. We ended up heading back to the barn in shoulder-in position the entire way to prevent a bolt. Sooooo much fun. Got back to the barn and worked his butt off in the ring for the next hour.

Anyone else have a less than pleasant ride lately?

Good practise for you though! I haven't been able to ride for the last month because of extreme cold, then windstorms, now treacherous ice as everything is melting. My boys don't have much spring flings anymore, a sideways shy here & there maybe, but I have had them for so long now they know to behave, for the most part, shhhhh. But it is a bit interesting the first time we can hit the trails, very looky, but again, good practise for handling skills.

Yep, Lacey's the exact same way.
She has, what I like to call, her "winter personality" where she's relatively laid back, never spooky, and relatively dependable. Then, she has her "spring personality" where she's just looking for opportunities to spook violently at something, bolt, be resistant, etc.
She's a pain in the summer/fall as well but she's bonkers in the spring.

Right now she's in the throes of "OMG, SPRING!! I feel so young! I have so much energy!!". Overnight we got about 5 inches of snow so she stood in her shelter all night, building up energy, and, because of the snow, everything looked different (obviously terrifyingly so) on our usual route. I had to use my crop on her and the curb rein of her pelham, I haven't had to use either in quite a while. Everything was either a reason to bolt backwards (crop) or bolting forwards (curb rein).

Ah, our horses. Good thing your boy is a gelding and you live on the other side of the country, him and Lacey would have the most terrifyingly split personality babies.


Good for you for sticking with it! That takes some nerve. And just think, our sassy horses are going to make us be pro riders in no time.
I have that same thought process too: maybe Lacey's thick winter coat will help her stay sane-r because she gets too hot? Apparently not. Haha

I love my synthetic Aussie for just that reason, there is no falling out of that saddle. Once you're in it, you're in it until you decide to come out. Hahaha

Most of mine still behave under saddle BUT Missy was my exception today. She's admittedly not much of a trail horse, spent her previous life as an arena diva. Our ride in the woods today was a snort & scoot ride. I'm out of practice dealing with that in an english saddle, I'm certain I will be feeling it in the morning.

I'm like you MBP and glad/surprised I didn't walk back on foot horseless
On a positive note, rode Woodstock bareback for the first time & probably 20th ride total and he was such a good boy!

LOVE synthetic for nutty horse season!

I'm surprised too. He almost got me once, but I wasn't going to let the little BSing *hit win! I thought about emergency dismount a few times, but he was never once standing still, and I knew my little chicken wing arms could not hold him in that condition. It is amazing what you can do when you need to!

Congrats on the bareback ride. I haven't passed that test yet!

Selena acts like it's spring all the time.

I know what you are saying.... BUT just think how hyped up we get for Spring and I can kind of understand how they feel!

My mare gets spring fever too, she's just gets way too much motor for her own good. This is when we spend more time lunging, I let her get it out on the ground before I even hop on her back.

My gelding is actually worse in the winter when the days are crisp and cool. He mellows out when the snow melts. Good job sticking with it!