by Mary Beth

Created on: December 03, 2009

To bombproof the spooky horse one must first have an understanding of horses, and If I may say this first - no horse is bomb proof. There is always the possibility that a horse, any horse, will spook. It just depends on what new "monster" in introduced into the horses view. When a person has this firmly in mind then the process of making a horse better can get underway.

Working with many horses, I've found that some horses are spookier that others and those are the ones I tend to focus on. Since I don't know every horse's back ground, I can only guess the reason for the fear. Consistent work with the spooky horse can have a calm down effect. It will take time, but the horse may have the potential to be a good mount for even the most amateur rider.

I've had many amateur riders at our barn. As we go out on the trail, I am constantly alert to objects that may cause spooking. One of our new horses couldn't get past the swimming pool full of swimmers for many days. When the trail goes past the swimming pool and non-horse people are flinging around colorful towels and beach toys, the horses have to be desensitized to these objects. It is extremely important for the welfare of the riders...and my sanity.

Sacking and desensitizing are terms to learn to help horses overcome spooking. Is the horse scared of skateboards? Get a skateboard at the barn and handle the horse with a lead rope and halter while a helper skates back and forth in front of the horse. The first few times of the noisy "monster" in close range will make the horse very fidgety and possibly dangerous. Keep up with the exercise daily. Soon the horse will calm down when he realizes he isn't being hurt. This is called desensitizing. Are flags an issue? Get a piece of flag-like material and hang it around the barn. Get another piece of flag-like material and rub the horse all over with it day after day until he doesn't care about the flag. this is called sacking out. What is the horse afraid of? Put it near the barn. I had a horse scared of the noise of an empty water bottle being crunched. This particular horse had water bottle therapy. We sacked out that horse down everyday with the crunching water bottle.

There are so many things to learn about a horse's mind. They are either going to fight or flee, they are extra sensitive to noise...much more that we are, they see things in black and white and are more spooked at white objects, and they have excellent memories. Keep these things in mind as you work with your horse when it comes to spooking.

As I said earlier, even the well trained horse has set backs. Just the other day one of our horses who has been ridden consistently for three years and has ridden many children spooked when we tried to mount him bareback with just a halter. What in the world? I hurt my hand in his explosion of bucking. The next thing that we did was bring the horse in the barn, brush him down, saddle him and work him out in the arena until his was back to normal. We then unsaddled him and rode him bareback around the arena again.

If you want to call it bomb proofing, then go right ahead. To me it's called consistent sacking out and desensitizing. All horses can benefit from the process.

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