To finish this blog series, I thought I would end on a rather humorous note: all the many many crazy things that terrify horses. With all of the hours of time I have spent around horses over the years, I could probably come up with a list of over 100 instances where my horse spooked at the most random thing.

Horses are generally more scared of the things they can’t see in shadows than the loud noises they can actually hear. My hypothesis is that if something does not seem to be concealed then the horse can watch it like a hawk but if it might leap out and eat them, that is when they will throw an absolute fit.

My horse is the perfect example as he is completely fine with walking on the side of the road where trucks are flying past him. Every time a car comes close to us, I even flinch a little, but he just keeps on walking like nothing happened. He, however, is not okay when we are out in the woods and he thinks he hears the quietest noise in the same direction that the wind just blew some tree branches. I am fairly convinced that in these instances, he genuinely fears for his life and believes something might eat him. I also truly believe that he forgets that he is a 1000 pound animal and he believes instead that he is the size of a mouse where anything could just snatch him up. 

Alright now onto a small fraction of the fearful things that horses may think will eat and swallow them up whole at any given time: 

1. Arena Corners: There was this one horse that I knew that occasionally would just freak out whenever she got close to the corner of this indoor arena where we rode. She would just tense up and spin in circles the more you would push her to go into the corner. We ended up joking and saying that there were imaginary trolls that we could not see but that were terrifying to this horse. 
2. Tractors: Another horse that I rode became hysterical when she heard the sound of a tractor. I always had a lesson at the same time and like clockwork, the neighbor would also begin working on his tractor. I think that it was probably because she could only hear this loud noise but not see where it was coming from.  
3. Storms, Wind, Change in Barometric Pressure: Horses are surprisingly sensitive to the weather and feel changes that seem imperceptible to us. I know when a storm is about to happen because the horse will generally enter a collective hysteria like in the Salem Witch Trials. They all become extremely excitable and less predictable than normal.