new violent spooking that got me dumped- need advice

[equestrian1800]

I could really use some advice. My horse is fairly young and has been in serious work for about a year and a half. He has always been well behaved. He does have a spook in him but I have always ridden through the spooks and never felt in danger. I know him well and can usually tell when he is going to spook so I am prepared and he usually spooks at pretty obvious things. I have always ridden him through it, not made a huge deal but made him keep working and never let him avoid something because he was scared.

Recently (in the past month or so) however, his spooking has gotten inexplicably worse. He has started spooking suddenly and without warning for no apparent reason. We will be trotting around having a lovely ride, both of us seemingly completely relaxed and out of nowhere and in a split second he will leap sideways, spin, drop his shoulder. I have still been able to ride him through these spooks but they are harder to stay with and over the past month he almost got me off twice but I rode through it. Last week right near the end of a perfect ride we were trotting a circle and literally out of nowhere he exploded, leapt sideways and before I even knew what was happening I was on the ground, he literally disappeared out from under me. I never stood a chance. This is the first time I've fallen off this horse and have not been able to ride him since because I suffered a minor injury from the fall that has me laid up for a little while. Now I am scared to ride him again, mostly because of the nature of the fall- I feel that if he did that again I would just fall again. There was no time for me to process or to think okay do this and that differently. It wasn't one of those falls were you even feel yourself going, you are just on the ground. To make it worse it is clear this problem is escalating and I don't know why and I have no idea what he is even spooking at (has happened in different locations each time).

I could use advice in a few areas: 1) how can I trust him again? 2) what can I possibly do differently if this were to happen again? 3) any ideas what is causing this behavior change in him?
One more thing, I had him vetted a few months ago because of some stiffness when our training increased. The vet thought he was sound but a little stiff behind and sensitive in the loin area. We ended up treating for lyme which didn't seem to help, but then put him on legend which made a big difference (xrays showed some minor changes in the hocks). My one thought is maybe he has ulcers from the doxy? Does this sound like ulcer behavior? He eats well, is in good weight etc., spookiness is the only real symptom. It isn't that he is spooking more often, but that he is spooking more violently, without warning and not at anything I can identify.
Would greatly appreciate any advice!

[Fixerupper]

If it is a new problem I would look at comfort issues..teeth, saddle, shoeing, bit, diet...anything that has changed in the same time period as the spooking.
Spooking can just be a protest against discomfort

[Ambrey]

Have you changed his feed or his environment at all?

[Equilibrium]

Ditto, all the above. Also what is his work like? Is it always in an arena? If not get him out doing some different things. It sounds like maybe it could be boredom of the same old routine as well.

As far as your trust with him. That will take much longer to repair and don't have any easy solutions for you. I think you should have someone else ride your horse for a little while to see what's going on and to perhaps get him out of what's becoming a bad habit. And really this is only something to consider after you've ruled out the normal causes.

Terri

[horsesarelikepotatochips]

Sounds like a pain issue to me as well. I have a thoroughbred who is a bit spooky to begin with, but if anything is bothering him pain wise, he becomes very sensitive and very unpredictable. I know now that as soon as he becomes harder to ride and spooks at everything, I need to investigate what is bothering him.

It sounds like you might want to investigate whether or not your guy would benefit from more frequent legends injections or possibly hock injections.

[TikiSoo]

This exact same thing happened with me & my QH at just under the one year mark of owning her. I'm great at riding out a regular spook, but never felt this one coming, I was just on the ground! :eek:

My greenie most definitely "had my number" and absolutely tried to bully me, knowing full well I'm trying to be gentle with her so not to scare her. I call it an adolescent tantrum because that's just what it is to me, testing the boundries.

I was terrified to get back on her and even more afraid of the trail where it happened. I stayed riding in the confines of the ring to help my confidence & feel safer.
Because she's still young, I upped our lunging sessions to reinforce the idea that I was the leader of our team. I also spent a lot of time desensitizing her "spookies" from the ground to show her she could trust me in case of a flying plastic bag enemy approach.

Most importantly, I took her out of her nice D snaffle and bought a Wonder gag type bit and put the reins in the first hole down.

Having just a tad stronger bit seems to have communicated to her that I won't tolerate any shananigans. It also has helped my confidence *thinking* that I have more control over her head now.

She hasn't exploded since, but I'm always on guard.
I hope it helps to know you're not the only one this has happened to....GOOD LUCK!!

[nostirrups]

If you can, I would have a chiropractor look at him. I would also try a product called Natural Plan Stomach Soother www.stomachsoother.com

It can help settle uneasiness in a horse.

I wish you well in your recovery, physically and emotionally. Trust is a hard thing to regain....but if you take baby steps, you guys will be back working together soon!

[Adelita]

I'd have his eyes and ears checked too.

I had a TB gelding who got worse and worse at the spooking. Turns out he had ticks deep in his ears....maybe it affected his hearing and he was hearing weird things? I don't know but once the ticks were removed he was better.

And vision problems can cause spooking to worsen too.

[EqTrainer]

Start w/a full work up. And if your young horse has hock changes already, it might be a good idea to discuss injecting him NOW and seeing if there is a change. I have seen horses injected at 5 who never needed it again until their teen years. It's an odd phenomena IMO but true. Pain will indeed cause horses to act as you mention. The problem is, by riding thru it over and over again until you are dumped, now it can become a habit. So once you find out what is wrong, please send your horse to someone who can retrain the spook mechanism to one that is acceptable. And FWIW, the type of spook you describe is the exact one my personal horse developed when he had EPM and I assure you, if I had tried to continue riding him thru it, he would have thrown me. Anything truly out of character w/a horse is a red flag to investigate.

[jacksmom]

i'm going to chime in with other folks here in thinking this isn't a spook it's a pain evasion.

had a friend with a horse that has a similar story, turned out the mare had 'kissing spine' and when her back got tweaked she would wig - and it looked like a spook or appeared to be a naughty buck, when all it was was her trying to right herself.

she's now a few years down the road, she's in regular maintenance for it, and she's doing great.

[Queen Latisha]

I have a WB, who at 3.5 years of age did the same type of spook a few times each ride. I found if I let him get his energy out on a longe line, the spook would disappear.
He's now 5 and really doesn't spook anymore, unless he feeling "uppity".
Does your horse get turned out, any change in his feed?
Do you notice a change when he has a day off?

[MargaretW]

Jane Savoie did a recent article about shying that I thought was excellent. I don't think she was refering to violent spooks, but hopefully some of her ideas will be helpful, particularly the idea of the dominant eye, which has helped me a lot, as my horse can be spooky as well.
http://www.barnmice.com/profiles/blogs/do-you-make-these-mistakes
On another note, I am wondering if you have increased the work lately? Sometimes when horses feel that pressure of the new work, they react by spooking at everything.

[equestrian1800]

thanks for the responses. I'll call the vet tomorrow.

[HenryisBlaisin']

I'm glad you're having the vet out-it does sound more physical than behavioral. Make sure he checks your horse's vision while he's there. I've known horses that get very spooky because of vision issues, especially as their sight gets worse-think seeing shadows that you can't identify out of the corner of your eye and how scary that would be.

That said,and especially if the vet can't find anything obvious, consider something like a beesting. The only time I had a horse truly explode under me was from a beesting-I was on the ground before I knew what hit me, and I saw the bees, so I know that's what it was. We killed the nest and he never spooked like that again. I've had other horses react very violently to stings-it's a sudden, and (to the horse) inexplicable pain. The worst spooks I've ever ridden were all caused by beestings (except for one moose, but that's another story).

[gully's pilot]

Another thing to check is saddle fit. When I first got Gully as an almost-4-year-old, my saddle fit him fine. A year later, he had filled out quite a bit, but I didn't think to recheck the saddle fit until he started getting really nappy in the canter. Changed saddles, and the problem disappeared.

[Riley0522]

When you have the vet out, definitely talk to him about ulcers. Sounds just like my horse...dirty, nasty spooking about EVERYTHING (a blade of grass blowing, a lunge line on the post that I just used to lunge him, the barn cat walking 100ft away)...2 days on ranitidine and you'd think he was a seasoned school horse.

[Beverley]

Not discounting the good advice you've received on looking for pain issues- but, honestly, in my experience, culprit #1 is usually just too many groceries and not enough work. If the horse is getting grain, eliminate it altogether for a week or so and see if you see a difference.

My little mare, normally quite steady for her youth and inexperience, started getting goofy on me this spring- and with nothing more than increasing the ratio of grass hay to alfalfa, the problem went away.

[Sandy M]

Ah, this sounds familiar, from about a year ago.....(for me and my then 4 year old). Assuming pain issues are ruled out, including saddle fit, I had my youngster launching me for apparently no reason. Mid ride, beginning of ride, two seconds after I mounted, etc. no apparent reason for spook/bucking.

I took him back to the colt starter for a weekend, and she had me do ground work before EVERY ride (I had been skipping it if he'd been ridden the day before). I followed that routine, including SOME lungeing, though not every time. I also did the "disengaging the HQ" exercise on the ground before mounting, and immediately upon mounting to both the left and right, which got him settled before I asked him to work. I am NOT into "NH" and neither is the colt starter, though she is a Hunt/Brannaman disciple. But doing the ground work and exercises (usually a total of 10 mins) before each ride really helped, and in the last 10 months, I have not had anything but "normal" mild horsey spooks from him, and he is showing Training Level, trail riding, etc. though still fairly green.

I now do about 3-5 mins. of the ground work with him before getting on and only lunge him on occasion (like if he's passaging on the way to the arena!!!;o)) On some daring days, I've just saddled, led him up to the mounting block and gotten on, and he's been very well behaved. Some of it may be the (relative) maturity of achieving 5 years, but since he's still somewhat ADD and by no means totally non-spooky, the work appears to have "cured" him of the violent, I-Have-No-Idea-WHy-He-Did-That type spooks.

[cowgirljenn]

I have a horse who is a big-time spooker. When I first started him under saddle, he was ok but the more confident he got under saddle, the more often he spooked. When he spooks, he either takes off at top speeds or levitates to the side before taking off at high speeds. The funny thing is that he often does his BEST to stay under me (even when I've almost been clinging to his side).

My guy doesn't seem to have pain issues and is otherwise healthy. And he's worse at home (although he's been silly at shows sometimes too). I think Jawhari's issue is that he's easily bored. Once he got comfortable carrying a rider, he started looking for things to do. He did better when we were taking dressage lessons - it kept him busier and gave him less time to spook.

So.. for him.. I deal with it, longe him before a ride if I haven't ridden in a while, and keep him busy - transitions, changing directions, leg yields, etc. He likes having things to do.

[LuvMyTB]

You've gotten good advice here. I would second the "take him off grain for a week" approach.

My middle-aged mare started acting NUTS this spring--not spooking, but really barn-sour, frenzied under saddle, screaming for her boyfriend, throwing her head--she was completely out of control. I could barely ride. It was like she was crawling out of her skin with too much energy.

My BO had her on 10lbs/day of TC Complete and she was getting virtually no work. My BO and I went back and forth about the grain issue, but after a particularly bad ride, I forced the issue and had her ration reduced DRASTICALLY--and then started to switch her over to SafeChoice.

Within 5 days she was back to her normal self. It was like a switch was flipped. We were both SO much happier after that.

[Alibhai's Alibar]

Another question to narrow down possibilities: has your horse ever done one of these spooks on the ground/not being ridden? Is it only a riding thing?

Hope you get it resolved and I hope you are feeling better.

[LostFarmer]

If he were mine I would try and rule out the pain issues. I have a feeling he has your number and is going to keep calling. If that is the case and if he were mine I would throw a pack on him with a hundred pounds of salt on each side. Then I would happily hit the trail leading him looking for spooky stuff. The salt will take the starch out of him. And on the off chance he bucks he will have a bag of salt to hit him in the ribs with every jump.

Turn down the heat on the feed side and up the work on the other side of the equation. Do you have a patience post? I have an old rail road tie that is set about 6 feet in the ground. The top has this swivel built into it. I tie horses to it and let them think about life for several hours at a time. Lead them to water and back to the patience post. It is amazing the change in attitude that a little thinking time will have.

My grandfather who worked horses hard for many a year said, "sweat will make good horses and kids." His other phrase was "if they are bleeding soap they are ready to learn." Meaning until they have a little sweat going they are not ready to get down to learning.

Farmer methods that have worked for generations. Rule out pain then start wet blanket therapy. LF

[equestrian1800]

To answer a few questions, I don't really think it is an excess energy thing, he is pretty laid back undersaddle most of the time and this isn't something that happens at the beginning of the ride in particular. I've ridden my share of hot and amped up horses and that isn't him. He is going from 0-100 in seconds.
He also gets very little grain, and high quality free choice hay.

This mostly happens undersaddle, but a few weeks ago there was one bizarre incident when I was hand grazing now that I think of it. He was eating grass, his favorite thing to do, in a very peaceful area and literally out of nowhere he exploded forward. He calmed down and continued to eat. We wandered over to another area and he did the same thing two more times- grazing away and then boom, he was leaping around. I wouldn't say it was the same spook as he does undersaddle (sideways and spinning) but that might just be because I was holding him.

[Fixerupper]

The more specific you can be by observing the behavior and circumstances around it, the better chance you have of identifying the problem. I knew a horse that developed benign cysts on the iris that impaired his vision and made him spooky...unusual? yes...but a solvable problem. However as I said before.. some common food additives (like some vitamins) can upset a horse's 'mental' balance...as can ulcers (safe and easy treatment could rule that out).
Good luck