Horses Instinctively Know When Something Has Changed in Their Range of Vision

As an amateur rider one of the things that is always somewhat unsettling is when your horse spooks at something. I’ve heard various methods to handle a spooky horse.

Circle Your Horse Until He’s Calm

One is that if your horse is spooking at something then he is not paying attention to you. So just put them in a circle and get them calmed down then ride them off again.

Let Your Horse Stand and Look at the Scary Thing

Another is to take the horse over to the thing that is spooking them and have them look at it and keep them there until they appear to have lost their fear of the thing.

I’m not sure which works best and I’ve used both.

Yesterday my husband threw away some old apples on a burn pile we have on our ranch. The arena sits about 200 feet from the burn pile and the old apples. Hardly anything you’d think would be a problem for a usually quiet mare.

Wrong! Today while out riding her just as we turned the corner at the jog she saw these apples in the distance and spooked like it was a bear in the woods.

So then the rest of our ride, she was looking and acting more alert than her usual self. Thankfully her spook was a small jump so not a problem.

I guess the moral of the story is to always be on the alert when you ride because your horse sees everything and is always looking out for that next scary thing that to you is simply old apples.