You are riding ol' marmot down a familiar road and notice that the "For Sale" sign is gone from a nearby front pasture. You are wondering what kind of horses the new folks have, when suddenly four huge, shaggy, ungainly creatures come galumphing toward you in a bizarre sort of gallop. Your horse freezes in horror, eyes bulging, his body crouching slightly as he prepares for a rapid retreat.
Evidently the new neighbors raise llamas.
Or maybe you've lined up in the park for the start of a competitive trail ride. Your horse has successfully trained and competed over long distances, and seems well prepared for anything the rugged terrain might afford. But just then, the circus setting up across the road starts unloading the elephants.
Or maybe an 18-wheeler suddenly barrels down your normally quiet road, spitting gravel as it comes toward you and your alert, sensitive mare. As the truck roars by, the driver leans out the window and yells, "Pretty horse!" then lets loose with a blast from his air horn.
If you do much of anything on horseback, chances are good that you and your horse are going to encounter things that are unexpectedly exciting. It could be anything-a baby stroller being pushed around a corner at the fairgrounds, a longhorn steer loitering in the shade of a nearby haystack, a pheasant bursting from a hedge-or just a scary boulder on the trail.
Prepping for Final Exams
Consider controlled encounters with other animals as challenging pop quizzes.
- Keep your horse moving forward and his focus on you.
- Ride far enough away from the distraction to gain control.
- Use familiar exercises to improve your horse's responses to essential cues.
- Remain calm and consistent so your horse learns to trust your response to his fear.
- Move closer to the fearsome creature when your horse is calm and cooperative.
Such situations can produce pretty intense fear responses and, unfortunately, riders tend to be unfairly judgmental of their horses.
We are told that horses are cowards, and we believe it. If a horse flatly refuses to continue on the trail past a pen with noisy peacocks in it, we thump on his ribs, think he is playing the same sort of mental game that people play on each other; or that he is being stubborn, pretending to be stupid, or being purposely annoying.
But horses don't do that. When a horse is afraid, he's afraid. Period.
The horse is actually one of the least stubborn, most courageous animals on earth. When a rider asks a horse to walk quietly into or next to a bizarre object that, to the horse, is a terrifying monster, it's like someone asking you to jump off a 100-foot cliff with bungee cords on your ankles-even though you're afraid of heights. If you think about it rationally, how do you know for sure that the person who measured the bungee cords did it accurately?
Five minutes of persuasion is probably not going to make you want to jump off that cliff. But what if, after five minutes, the bungee jump operator loses patience and begins to kick you, call you names, and swat you with a whip? Is that likely going to make you trust the person who is telling you that you have no reason to be afraid-while you stare intently over the edge of the cliff at a bunch of rocks far below? Sure, the guy telling you to jump is not afraid, but he's not going to be the one to go "splat" if he miscalculated the length of those bungees.
