young mare that enjoys "LOOKING"

I think I'd have to agree with this. It seems that "lookers" are more in tune with taking in what's around them, they're observers much like some humans are more observant than others. And there is a difference between a "looker" and a "spooker," who tries to find monsters around every corner.

Or if they aren't "smarter" per se, the "lookers" at least seem to be more curious in general about learning, smelling, tasting things they haven't before. I'd agree that it's fun to have a horse that wants to go out and explore as much as their rider does.

My Mare is ten and she LOVES looking around while were exploring the trails. I do have to steer her bit from time to time to keep her on the path. Plus to keep her from running into trees and such cause she just enjoying the scenery. It don't bother me that she does it, I find it funny at times, cause we will be weaving back and forth and I jokingly tell Babe. "Babe you better hope we don't get stop by any police for all this weaving, cause you'll get a sobriety test for sure."

Allowing a horse to sight see, is very poor training on behave of the rider, Why, would I say that?

Consider the facts:

• Horses have amazing peripheral vision with two blind spots. One blind spot is directly in front of his nose extending around four feet in front of it. The second blind spot is behind the tail. That blind spot extends about ten feet long, beyond the horse's tail.
• The field of view for horses can reach up to 200 degrees.

So why would you let a horse sight see, they can see everything they need to see with their head straight ahead. All allowing them to turn their head to sight see, does, is teach them to NOT pay attention to the rider. Eventually, the sight seeing will get the rider into trouble. An in attentive horse will eventually start taking control and sooner or later do as it wants and the rider will not have a choice in the matter. And we wonder where the outlaws come from, we, the humans, made them that way.

This might seem like such a trivial thing to a lot of folks, but it is the trivials, one step at time, that ruins good horses. We need to understand "the nature of the horse" in order to co-exist with them and keep control. Once out of control, the road back, is full of large mud holes, that sometimes can not be filled.

Haven't you ever wondered, why the dead broke, very well trained horse, becomes too much for the rider to handle. One little trivial after another, and the horse responds accordingly. We retrained them to NOT be the dead broke, do anything, go anywhere, equine, we started with.

Horses are prey animals. They have a million years of genes telling them they need to be observant to what going on around them. So it's expected that a horse should be observant of it's surroundings. Until you re-engineer their survival gene, You are not going to take that out of them.

But there is a compromise. Horses will learn that the bigger priority is watching where their feet are going, paying attention to the trail, and putting sight seeing onto the peripheral. I fully expect my horses to be looking around, Most of the time they spot deer and elk before I do.

But they need to know that is a secondary task that they do after they have done all that I've asked them. Just as you and I may read billboards along the freeway. If I get distracted and focus on something other than my driving, I am at risk of getting in an accident. But I ( and most people) can observe bill board advertising all kinds of products and not let it become distracting to my driving. Your horse just needs to put it into that back ground process.

About six months ago I believe we where trail riding and we are on pretty steep and rocky ground. My mare tripped the WHOLE ride because she wasnt paying attention at all to where she was walking but everything that was around. On the way home she just so happened to be looking over the edge of steep trail and what do you know, she tripped and she face planted in the rocks and back feet went over the side. By then I was just severely irritated that she couldnt pay any attention and gave her good swift wack with my reins. I don't mind looking but where we ride they have to pay attention to their feet. If they don't its life or death for riders and their horses. I demand attention from her the whole. I pick and place her feet where I want them if I have to but they need to pay attention. I quick glance here and there is once thing but not slowing down and not paying attention to footing is just not acceptable in my book. Its dangerous.

I think it also depends on the horse, I do understand you saying that they aren't paying attention to where their feet are going but so long as my mare is not tripping/weaving along I'm ok with her turning her head to look at something.......now if she was not paying attention to her feet then she would get a whack to pay attention.....

There is a difference between letting a horse be "observant" and "looking" while they're moving along the trail, rather than letting them gallivant sloppily along as they please.

You'd have to agree some horses are more observant than others, it comes with different personalities. I think that's what this thread was initially about.

I have a five year old gelding who's been under saddle for 8 months and LOVES looking around. I, personally, don't let him sightsee too much on the trail unless I stop him and loosen the reins. He knows that that is when he is allowed to check out the views while I rest.

If he is busy looking around while we're on the trail, I start asking him to do things to get his attention back on me. Normally, if I'm with a group and don't want to stop, I will side pass him and weave down the trail, which always gets his head back in the game. If I'm alone, and sick of side passing, I will stop and back him, let him take a step, then back him again, a few more steps, and back again. I've also used half halts and pivots to get the same result.

That's how I personally deal with this behavior. I love that my horse is very curious, and don't want to make him a boring horse that just plods down the trail with his nose in the sand. Instead, I put his head to better use until I decide he may take a break and look around. Hope this helps someone.

[QUOTE=bbsmfg3;1902819]Consider the facts:

• Horses have amazing peripheral vision with two blind spots. One blind spot is directly in front of his nose extending around four feet in front of it. The second blind spot is behind the tail. That blind spot extends about ten feet long, beyond the horse's tail.
• The field of view for horses can reach up to 200 degrees.

But the visual system only responds to changes, so if the horse (or you) isn't looking around, everything tends to fade into a kind of bland background. Of course this has survival aspects, since any sudden movement - a tiger getting ready to spring, for instance - grabs immediate attention*. But it also means that pretty much any creature that's interested in its environment will look around.

*That's also why most TV commercials use lots of quick cuts from scene to scene: they grab attention down at the reflex level.