Confronting Spooky Objects That Move

From time to time, your horse is going to be spooked by objects, especially if they appear suddenly and are moving fast. These spooky encounters don’t have to ruin your ride. Clinton tells us that you can even learn how to turn them into training opportunities.

Clinton Anderson from Downunder Horsemanship has developed a way to train horses, regardless of their past problems or traumas. It begins with training the owners to gain their horses’ respect and understand how to control them properly. Join Clinton on his weekly endeavors to tackle some of the most challenging situations with problem horses and problem owners. This week, we watch as Clinton tells us how to train your horse to confront spooky objects that move.

Horses are spooked by lots of things. It could be cattle, tractors, lawnmowers, or what have you. Your horse may be really reactive to objects when they first see them, especially if they move. This can be problematic, but there are solutions. Horses are brave cowards – as long as an object is moving away from them, they are brave. They’ll follow it and aren’t scared of it. If the object turns and faces them, the horse becomes a coward and runs away. When your horse is scared of an object that moves, try to get the object to move away from your horse as you follow it.

In this lesson, Clinton works with Method Ambassador Rick Badousek and his training horse to simulate what to do if your horse is scared of a four-wheeler with a roping dummy hooked up behind it. Professional Clinician Kristin Hamacher will drive the four-wheeler as Rick works with his horse. Rick’s horse has barely had three weeks’ worth of riding, so Clinton hopes the gelding will be a bit spooky and reactive.

To begin, Clinton has Kristin drive the four-wheeler in a big crisscross pattern around the arena. At the same time, Rick asks his horse to trot and follow behind the four-wheeler at a distance. If the horse is really reactive of the object, he’s not going to want to get really close to it. As his confidence grows, he’ll naturally get closer to it. Kristin maintains a consistent speed with the four-wheeler as Rick does his best to follow in its tracks.

Clinton says that whenever you can control the environment of something that frightens your horse (e.g., with a lawn mower, tractor, or four-wheeler) it makes the process of building your horse’s confidence a lot easier. If your horse is spooking at an object such as a deer or a wild animal, it’s going to be a lot harder to build their confidence because you can’t necessarily control where a deer or wild animal goes, how fast it goes, or when it comes back.

So, the first step with horses is to get whatever they’re frightened of to go away from them. This is the same concept used to desensitize horses to plastic bags, an exercise found in the Intermediate Series. First, you’ll want to walk away from the horse as you flap the plastic bag on the ground from one side of your body to the other side. As you walk away, your horse will follow behind you. Horses are always more confident when whatever they’re frightened of is going away from them, but then as soon as what they’re scared of stops or starts to come toward them, the meltdown begins. So, step one is getting the horse to confidently follow the spooky object in question.

As the lesson continues, Rick’s horse gets closer to the four-wheeler, and Clinton tells us that it means he’s building up his confidence. Rick’s horse has even found a little rhythm in his trot, which is a great sign. In fact, Clinton mentions that he wishes the horse was a little more frightened of the four-wheeler so viewers could see what to do if their horse veered off or was more worried about the object. Rick keeps following the four-wheeler with his horse, adding in some loops if the gelding cuts the corners of the pattern. But, for the most part, he seems to have built up his confidence and learned how to confront spooky objects.

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