Afraid of everything?

Hi guys,

one of my horse is 6 years old and it seem to me that he is afraid of everything he can see... cars, water, color boxes etc. he will run you over if he gets scared of something...

i'm trying to bring him with me on the road and show him the most new things I can show him but everytime there is something else... for example today, I took a walk with him on the side of the road and a scooter passed by, I swear I olmost lost him, he started to jump all over the place and finally calmed down but he got me scared cause he is a big guy. Even the guy on the scooter got really scared... the strange thing is that that boy passes all the time on our street and the horse is about 100 feet from there... I don't understand why he reacted like that!

so I was wondering, how can some horse be "bombproof" or how can you show a horse "everything" that could eventually happen so that he doesn't get scared like that? If I was riding him today, I would probably been trown off.

thanks

William!

Time is the essence here. Until you can bombproof your horse you will never have complete control and the chances of you both getting hurt is to great to ignore.

Firstly I suggest finding someone who does join up to connect you to your horse so you can be his leader because its not just your horses is scared but he doesnt follow your leadership enough to trust you to help him through it. Once you join up with your horse he should be a bit more confident enough to go to step two.

Step two is to introduce your horse to EVERYTHING in the confines of your arena. Start small with plastic bag on the end of a stick and get him used to being rubbed with that alll over. Then move onto bigger stuff like getting someone to drive around you in their car with you on or leading him. He'll freak yes but its better him freaking in there then out of the road and getting skittled....

Hope it works!!

One of my pet peeves, but no horse is bombproof. Kiki has some good ideas.

Was he kept in stall all the time before you got him? I know some ottb does spook on everything. If this is a case, he needs time. Friends of mine put big blue plastic cover in field for ottb like that and he got used to it with time (even seen them playing with this thing).

Hey, well if I was you I would be starting at the start again with him, I would tie bags around his paddock to start of with coz they are pretty scary them bags lol, then introduce balls and things like that but make sure that when you do all this stuff turn it into a game so that he sees that it will not hurt him and he can find peace in whatever you throw at him, then get bikes and thing lik that and ride them in the paddock not quite near him but just so he can see them and if he come close let him suss it all out and show him it aint so bad....
Make noises around him and reasure him that everything is ok and you wont let anything happen to him

Desensitize him to EVERYTHING you can think of! Lol. Use A LOT of approach and retreat. That is the KEY here, I think. Make sure that your release is in the correct timing, otherwise you could teach to TO spook. You basically want to teach him that when a situation comes up that he isn't sure about, he needs to 'hurry up and relax' instead of 'hurry up and run!' Maybe try some Parelli games with him. That will build his trust in you more, making it easier on you in the long run.

Yeah that's true Sparky LOL there is NO such thing as a tottally bombproof horse, like Dana is heck quiet but she's scared to death of Prams and Tortises........hmmmmm go figure