How do I re-teach my horse to spook in place?

Horsef said:

My mare seems to know how to spook in place. She will do it when it's too hot to move much or when she's tired. Lately she started spooking by cantering away. Ok, it did get very cold suddenly and she's been stall-bound because the fields are completely flooded but still.

I'm most probably doing something wrong. Should I shut her down harshly and immediately? I've been trying to stay out of her face generally, so when she spooks I try to stop her gently, with my seat and a little bit of hand. It's now starting to get on my nerves and I don't think it's good for her training to be allowed to just do whatever she pleases, even if I do get harsh with her.

Click to expand...

What you do to "correct" the horse is going to depend on the horse and the individual spooking situation.

For example, if a bird suddenly flies up in front of us while on the trail, heck, even I am bond to be startled by that! I am most certainly not going to get after a horse for something sudden like that which is reasonable to expect they may spook.

With that said, I also don't want them to BOLT off when something like that happens but I will calmly bring them back down to a walk, let them settle, and carry on the trail.

For horses that are LOOKING for things to get scared of, that's a bit different. With that type of horse, I am going to be as proactive as I can. I want to get them to change their focus from the scary world out there, to ME. If there focus is on me, they can't spook. We might do speed changes, direction turns, serpentines, sidepases, etc etc etc. Any and everything to keep their mind busy and them listening to me.

This can be useful when passing by a scary object. I pay no attention to the object at all, and "just so happens" to work my horse near it doing the same things as above. Again, if I can control my horse's attention and keep it on me, the spooking is a non-issue.

Over time with consistency, it teaches the horse to listen to the rider for what it should do, rather than deciding for itself to get out of Dodge.

If she still spooks on you, again, being super harsh or super upset about it doesn't pass on well to the horse. You want to calm them down and not rile them up. If you need to be firm with your cues, that's one thing, but no need to be jerking or anything like that.

And yes, cold temperatures often make horses more jumpy and/or energetic.
So does being locked up all day without turnout.
So that is going to influence their behavior and you'll just need to be even more proactive.