Of all the silly things to spook at!

Sometimes I wonder what's going on in my horse's head. The barn owner and her daughter have two rather large dogs between them. Every now and then they'll come trotting through the arena while I'm riding, and Dublin doesn't so much as bat an eyelash at them. But heaven forbid there be a cat in there! The other day I was riding one of the barn cats darted across several feet in front of us. Dublin, in a move worthy of a champion cutting horse, dropped down a good foot, did a 180 turn and was half way to the other end of the arena before I had quite figured out what happened. Silly pony. Apparently she thinks our barn is infested with a particularly vicious variety of flesh eating felines

Share your stories of the most ridiculous things your horse has spooked at!

Poor kitty, probably scared him just as much!

I ride a TB...the latest spook has been an arena door that was moving ever so slightly in the breeze. She spooked about 20 times over that door until she finally realized there was no horse eating monster on the other side trying to come in. She also spooks at birds flying around the arena...can't wait for spring when all the birds return!

Amber doesn't usually spook at anything, but in one corner of the arena there are jump standards sitting when not being used that she apparently thinks want to eat her. The silliest spook was one day a few months ago. There was a ladder set up a few feet outside the arena that she kept shying away from. It took about fifteen minutes for her to decide it wasn't scary. Later that same day there was a coyote in the field next to the arena, just a few feet away from us. Amber looked straight at it and never even batted an eye. I was sure that she would be more scared of a coyote than a ladder!
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Hmmm..... with a bubble-headed, dingbat, the question would be what hasn't my horse found scary?

I got a phone call from my BO last Winter, seems that he was cold so she spent a bit of time and worked him through putting an oh so scary blanket on. Very pleased that she was able to blanket him without too much of a fuss, she put him in turnout and found that numbskull was busy spooking at his tail flap! He would quietly be munching hay, the wind would blow and ruffle his tail flap and he would take off bucking and galloping, trying to get away from the horse-eating tail flap! It took him 3 MONTHS to figure out that tail flaps really don't eat horses.

Then nimwit managed to bruise his back foot so I called the farrier out and we decided to put shoes on to keep him comfortable while it grew out. Farrier put the shoes on and all of a sudden he was dancing and trying to run while in the cross ties. Yup, scared to death of his new shoes. Put him in the round pen (figured it was the safest place with the softest footing) and he galloped around trying to shake those shoes OFF his feet! Yup, scary horse-eating shoes! Thankfully he got tired after a few hours and gave up being scared, spent a few days picking up each hind foot and trying to shake them off though!

Haha that's a good one.. I was on a charity trail ride one year on my mare Buttermilk, and there was a flower pot on a post as a marker for the trail.. heaven forbid.. that flower pot was going to eat all the horses.. all the horses spooked at this little flower pot.. included my old faithful mount haha. Or an piece of plywood against a tree.. im sure she thought it was goin to eat her too.

yep.. harmless flower pots and plywood. Haha

I got a new saddle saturday and it's shiny black, TOTALLY freaked out my gelding. I've had him in a dark oil one and a tan/dark brown nylon one for months. I was super excited to get it on him but he acted like a wild beast pulling and rolling his eyes at it! So I threw it in the grass beside him, groomed him and put him up. I didn't feel like a doing a training session that day and the vet was coming out. That was the first time he's ever "spooked" at anything! ATV's, dirtbikes, dogs, waterfalls, baseballs, fireworks, guns, racing cars on dirt roads, you name it he's a champ... shiny black saddles... not so much.

Casper freaks at round bales. Yes, really.

Bailey recently spooked at his own tail ... and denny spooked at our 3 hens all within this last week... I have some seriously weird horses

Hehe that's funny. Dublin doesn't mind then when they're in the field, but the ones that are all congregated by the barn she finds awfully suspicious.

Cats are really scary when they move. Which is weird, because almost every horse I know likes barn cats. They love kitteh face rubs; they let kittehs nestle on their backs and lie in their food troughs. But something about the way cats move sets off a reflex equine OMG reaction. Go figure.