My horse is a huge scaredy-cat! Sometimes, it makes me laugh, especially when there is nothing there. I feel bad for him, though. If I ride him out on the trails more than once in a week, then he's fine. If I don't ride him that often, then he freaks out.
My horse is a bit of a scaredy cat at times. She doesn't like water and will do almost anything to avaoid getting her feet wet. She also hates plastic bags, and squirrels that she thinks are going to eat her!
Mine spooks at deer every time. The first time he discovered his phobia, he startled me so much I fell off. I expect it now so I don't fall off anymore but I'm trying to show him deer are NOT crazed beasts that are certain to chase him down.
My filly has spooked at a century 21 for sale sign flapping in the wind and creaking. She also dislikes small children running around but on the whole, enjoys a good hack. My appendix quarter horse gelding however, is convinced that the trails are full of monsters! One of his biggest problems is a row of small pine trees a house down the way has planted in their yard!
Yes, there are a handful of horses out there who are bombproof, but even bombproof horses have their scary objects. I've worked with the most bombproof horses I've ever met for years, and it was the most bombproof one that we had the worst incident with. This gelding, a big, muscular, problably around 16.1 Quarter Horse, was invincible. I've seen him standing out in the field, pinned between the fence and a horse that was clearly telling him to go away, pinning, then resorting to biting him repeatedly on the ear, and this horse just stood there throwing his head every time he was bitten. He was the horse we gave the least experienced riders. Even though he was only 6, he took the best care of his riders, doing exactly what they told him to do, going over bridges, through mud, walking through a creek... and he had had nervous riders on him before. However, we found out the hard way that he was most afraid of rider fear. A girl scout got on him to go on a trail ride, but she was really scared. Everyone knows that when the rider is nervous, the horse also gets nervous. He did, and if that wasn't enough, a pole got knocked down and touched him on the way down, and the girl who was handling him got startled and screamed. That was the last straw for this poor horse, who ripped out of the girl's hands and ran out of the arena with the screaming Girl Scout, abruptly stopping short of a fence, where the Girl Scout promptly fell off and hurt her wrist. She was crying, the horse was trembling, and it was overall a BAD situation. Well, we made sure to take a bunch of time out of our afternoon that day for desensitization, for him, as well as a couple other horses and ponies that we put kids on regularly.
My horse is also afraid of large rocks, white ones in particular. He likes to think there's something waiting to eat him around every corner but rocks are what really push him over the edge. He usually just whirls around to run as far away from it as possible but he hasn't actually taken off yet. After an encounter with a rock though it takes him a while to calm down again.
I was once riding a paint gelding named Chief and It was the first time riding him and we took him out on a trail and he was doing fine until I tried to guide him around a corner and he totally freaked out and started jumping all over and resufed to turn the corner. I COULD NOT get him to to. There was nothing around except trees. I felt him tense up so I grabed the saddle horn and dug my heels down becuase I thought he was going to bolt back to where we came from. after a minute one of my friends I was riding with had to lead there horse over to him and grad the bridle and lead him back. After that he was the best horse on the trail. I guess it was just one of those horsey moments on the trail :)
Of all the things that spook my horse on the trail, I think that the other horses are the biggest, I always ride on the same trails so theres not really anthing else to be scared of.
My horse Blaze never spooks at anything when we go out trail riding he loves to look at the birds and we ride with deer too. But heaven forbid if we go by the trash can at the end of our farms driveway. It is only that one trash can.
My instructors horse Angel is the spookiest horse around. Even when the wind blows, she hops & jumps around all scared. When you say her name she will jump as if your voice was a firecracker, even when you weren't yelling!