Road Safe

Question
Hi there, I wrote you a few weeks ago about my 4 yr old Throughbred Draft Cross.  I have started riding a lot now and he really seems to be enjoying it and 97% of his behavioral problems have cleared up.  I hadn't been able to ride him because the weather has been pretty crapy in Ontario, CA.  I guess he just needed a job to do and to spend more time with me.

Unfortunately where I live there has been a lot of development going on and we sold our farm and moved to a smaller place up the road.  This means no more acreage to ride on so I have to use the roads in order to get to some trails.  How can I go about making my horse bomb proof/road safe?  He seems to be a little spooky with load noises.  However when I first bought him he was pretty scared of the tractor but now he has gotten used to the sound, so he is willing to be brave. Any tips you can give me I would really appreciate!

Thanks!,

Karen

Answer
Karen,

Glad to hear that.  So many people don't realize that horses like to work!  Face it, we keep them in a pretty sterile environment as far as stimuli and youngsters especially get bored.  As far as road savvy the only way I know to do it is to expose them to traffic.  Taking him out with another horse or 2 that's OK in traffic as examples works wonders.  By exposing I mean either riding them along quiet roads at first and gradually moving up to busier areas.  Stick with roads that you can get off the road and ride on a wide shoulder.  If you have a big field that borders a road use that to start with.  I had a pasture that bordered on a road that had everything from school busses, big dump trucks, some tractor trailer traffic, lots of cars - you get the idea.  Anyone who was traffic-shy ran off at first.  The rest of the horses rarely even raised their heads unless it was a different sounding vehicle, like a siren.  The newbies got the idea really quickly and from there it was a piece of cake.  It's just something that you start out slowly with and progress.  You can work him in a ring with standard trail obstacles if you have the facilities.  Mail box.  Get him to take you to it and open it up and take something out.  Will make them totally not scary when passing on the road, especially if you inadvertently hit it with your stirrup.  Take him out and ride him around with the tractor.  Start out following at whatever distance he's comfortable.  Work on getting right up to it, passing it, leading with it behind and facing and passing as an oncoming vehicle.  When he's comfortable with that he's ready to face some real traffic.  He's willing to be brave and seems to have a head on his shoulders.  The work in the ring with any and all scary objects you might encounter on the road - dead pizza boxes that may blow in the wind, cardboard sheets he has to step on and walk over, plastic shopping bags - you get the idea.  Be creative.  Learning to face these scary obstacles at home and trusting you about them will stand in good stead when you hit the road.  The ring work I like to do by putting 1 object at a time in one end and staying in the other end at first.  I ride around there and let the horse get a good look at it.  Then I ride up to where he's uncomfortable, stop, and then ride back to the "safe" area.  This is repeated until he'll go up and put his nose on it and check it out.  

I hope this helps.  It's lots of fun to do.  I get really inventive.  I tied plastic bags all over the fence in the paddock and let them flap in the wind.  Scared all the horses at first but I have one pony who is very curious and it didn't take her long to check them out.  Once she did everyone else did too. For the most part they totally ignore the bags now.  So some things like that I then added to an obstacle in the ring.  I think I tied them to a garbage can.  Small flags, a big old pile of tarp, bikes, strollers, all the stuff you run into along the road besides traffic.  So your horse doesn't spook into traffic when you encounter them.  

Lyn