I know this sounds like a crazy question, but what color is he? If he happens to be a gray, add ocular melanoma to the list of things to look for. Ask me how I know this! And I definitely second finding the best ophthalmologist you can find. If you are close to KY, talk to Claire Latimer at Rood & Riddle.
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I agree with those who say it sounds like a potential eye issue, and that a trip to an eye specialist might be the next step to take.
But on a simpler note, have there been any feed changes you could pin down during any of the times where’s he’s gotten bad? I had a horse that was allergic to alfalfa - I know how silly that sounds and how odd it is for a horse to actually react to alfalfa. And most of my observations are in hindsight (where it’s all so clear!). He would get insanely spooky and also combative/aggressive/stallion-ish (to the point that he would try to mount the mares he had always lived with) when he had alfalfa in his diet. And over years of playing around with feed/grains/supps/treats, I found that even the amount of alfalfa in a couple of regular horse treats was enough to set him off. I also discovered that products like SmartCalm are made from an alfalfa base, and that small amount was enough to put him in his crazy mental space.
He was a quirky horse in other ways, so it’s not that he was “perfect” when he was on an alfalfa-free diet, but the difference was significant. He was spooky and paranoid whenever he consumed alfalfa. Everything set him off and he would get mad if you disciplined him for it. With alfalfa out of his diet he was complacent and calm and the opposite of spooky.
Just another thought!
Yeah, if this guy is scared in the aisle, this is probably unrelated to being ridden and likely a vision issue. Moon blindness?
Have an Equine opthalmologist take a good look.
Could he have suffered some sort of head trauma or other injury?
I ask because I had a young one that had been tied in a bridle at some point before I got him and evidently reared. His tongue had major damage and looking back, I suspect he hit his head hard. Over time, he began exhibiting neurological symptoms - spooking at things he was very familiar with, spooking at seemly ‘non-existant’ things that nobody else (people or equines) could see or hear, spooking to the point he’d run over whatever was in his way (people, other animals, etc).
We tried several things but eventually it got to the point where he was unsafe for everyone, including himself, and he was euthanized.
I also had one years before who suffered a pelvic fracture one winter - slipped on some ice coming in from turnout when I wasn’t there. She began wearing her feet strangely (always barefoot) and became increasing uncoordinated under saddle. Changing footing (from dirt to grass, grass to pavement, etc) became difficult. Her attitude changed as well, for the worst. She began very spooky and began bolting under saddle which she’d never done before. She became very unpleasant to deal with on the ground as well. Local vet did neuro work up and I also hauled her into New Bolton for a neuro exam. We could find nothing obvious. We ended up euthanized her when her coordination deteriorated to the point she started having issues in turnout.
Something to think about even if it’s to rule them out.
One thing to consider in terms of behavior … a change in vision will create ongoing and pervasive behavior issues. We become so used to the desensitized, people-ized horse that we know well, that we forget that these are primarily instinctive animals. Any change, and their primitive brain takes over all reactions. Which to me points to eyesight.
A basic neuro exam that tests “does he see” will answer “yes he can see”. That’s not an answer for the kinds of issues this horse is experiencing.
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Sorta sounds like he lost the plot a bit when other people were riding him for extended periods? Might their saddles have fitted differently than yours?
Had a horse with kissing spines, in retrospect I think it pinched over the jumps sometimes, but he would associate the pain with the jump. Saddle fit made a big difference to him. Could it be that a not so great fitting saddle when being ridden by others aggravated something in his back, or elsewhere, which he associated with jumping?
My horse never palpated sore on his back, but his xrays were awful. Back xrays could be something to add to the diagnostic list…
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Another vote for eyes.
I agree with this. My horse struggles with hind gut ulcers and he goes from a fairly reliable and brave creature to a reactive & tense horse who will spook at the weirdest stuff. Depending on how you “test” for ulcers, the hind gut stuff won’t show up. Just something to think about! Best of luck and I’m hoping for a positive update!
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I’m still extremely angry at myself for not getting a second opinion sooner on the eyes. 
Apparently even experienced specialists can miss things. I think that vet unfortunately was past his prime and probably should have admitted he was no longer capable of adequately treating horses anymore. He is still in practice and a bunch of sheltie people use him. All I can say is that I hope he’s better skilled with dogs than he was with my horse. He missed not one, not two, but THREE cysts in TWO DIFFERENT EYES. And my horse SUFFERED unnecessarily for months after because I believed we had ruled out a vision-related cause for his behavior.
So I mostly hail from Western land so I maybe have no business saying anything … BUT along with all the wonderful health suggestions everyone has mentioned (and worth checking into), what exactly have you done with this horse on GROUND WORK ? You haven’t said, and no one has suggested it. It sounds like you have only introduced obstacles to him while under saddle; of course, minus the objects he sees while be handled on the ground.
While I’ve never personally had a warmblood myself, I do know they can be a more reactive type of horse - exactly the type of horse that usually can greatly benefit from the trust and confidence that ground work builds.
I would build up to it of course, but ground poles and blue tarps are common things I use for ground work with my horses. When we get our own place, that’s also going to include a “pool” (logs for sides and a blue tarp to hold the water in) as that’s always a particuluarly scary obstacle for most horses. (Just hard to “build” that where I board now, since I always take down and put away everything I work with, for the next person.)
I know a lot of people don’t like him, but I am a big fan of Clinton Anderson when it comes to groundwork. Now, I will say I take him with a grain of salt. I am nowhere near as aggressive as he is and I don’t think you need to be. However, I do think he explains things very well (why, when, where, what, etc) on exactly what he is doing, and I think anyone can walk away with some positive ideas on how to help a horse be more confident around scary-type objects of any kind.
So ground work might be another thing to add to your list, provided health checks out.
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Another vote for eyes - that the behavior is consistent under saddle and on the ground, including in familiar places, suggests to me there is a vision issue. I think we all know the difference between a horse feeling silly and spooking at a jump he sees every day to amuse himself, and a horse having a true meltdown at something pretty normal- your dude unfortunately sounds like he is pretty scared, for whatever reason.
If you’re in the Northeast I would also double check for Lyme. I’m in NY/NJ and just anecdotally, when horses start acting bizarre, it’s very often Lyme - especially if he is acting at all aggressive.
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It sounds like from your description that he’s been fine when he’s regularly showing. Maybe that’s just in the wording and not the actual correlation, but I’d look into his show regimen. The obvious question being does he show on depo (or did he with your first trainer) and come off it when he doesn’t have shows coming up? If not, does he get bute or banamine or anything else at shows that might mask a pain response that comes out at home?
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Another vote for eyes.
We just took two in to a specialist. Honeslty, and my great vets will agree, most general equine vets don’t get much schooling on eyes.
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I will vote for double checking corpora nigra cysts. My guy has a large one, and it swings when he blinks. How in the world he is not spooky, I will never know, but I am considering having it removed because he is over-reactive to gnats around his face – so much that he shook his bridle off once.
The little “cloves” or “balls” that hang down from top of iris are normal – what is not normal is is big one dead center. You might have to enlarge to see it. Most people don’t even know corpora nigra exist until they are in the sun and it is the right angle.
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Well, if horses are similar to humans, the brain knows it’s there and essentially learns to ignore it. Just like if a human were to have a floater. They usually become less noticeable over time (even though they are still there) b/c the brain has learned to ignore it.
So that might answer your question!
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Definitely working on this. I am a big fan of natural horsemanship and grew up watching Monty Roberts videos and using the join up method with every horse I work with. I plan to reincorporate lunging into his work schedule 2-3 times per week to keep this going.
Treats and gradually leading him up to things that seem scary has helped a bit (today it was a stack of ground poles piled up in the middle of the indoor) but I had to get off of him to get him within 5 feet. Even once I got off, it took me 5-10 minutes to get him to take a step closer. He eventually walked right up and took a deep breath, but only after sniffing and snorting at the poles for a solid minute or two before he figured out that they weren’t going to come up and eat him.
On another note, definitely going to start him on an ulcer treatment. Noticed he’s had on-and-off diarrhea, very mildly, but enough where I’m cleaning his back legs each time I tack up… and he seemed a touch sensitive on his stomach when grooming.
Will get a Lyme titer done next week. Thinking about trying depo, again, too. He was on it (along with the rest of the horses in that barn) for the first year after import but it didn’t seem to make a huge difference so we stopped it when he moved to the other barn almost two years ago. He was gelded very young so it wouldn’t surprise me if a lack of hormones is contributing to some of his ‘self confidence’ issues.
If these things don’t do it, will definitely look into finding an equine eye specialist. I think there might be someone at Tufts (we’re in the Boston MA area).
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Tufts does have eye specialists - they took care of my horse’s corporal nigra cysts and were great. My horse had them in both eyes, and while his regular vet saw them in one eye, she missed the ones in his other eye (which were worse than the ones she did catch!).
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Love the Depo, have had it work miracles on a Warmblood gelding I used to have in my barn. Was the difference between this gelding being a total angel, or spinning his 10yr old rider off for no reason! Didn’t notice it did anything until we stopped using it!
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I also back the ulcer diagnosis. Had a horse react very similar and the once steady-eddy became unrideable for his older adult owner. We got his eyes checked but that didn’t seem to lend us any results. After doing my research, we put him on Aloe Vera Juice and he has since turned around and become a totally different horse. Back to his normal self! The owner couldn’t afford Gastroguard or the like and this worked miracles. $6.50 at Walmart for a giant jug!
So, I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from checking for physical issues, including vision, checking for oversized corpora nigra, etc.
However, some young horses can have major confidence and personality changes around this age if they lack a herd leader in their turnout situation. If someone sent this horse to my farm for training. I would immediately buddy it up with a quiet and steady, but slightly more dominant horse for turnout. Then I would use the company of the buddy wherever I was having troubles with the horse. In the aisle, in the arena, wherever the horse was having fear or confidence issues. We’d start out avoiding problem situations and working on basics, and then we would cross train with work out in the open.
I also want to add, that speaking as someone who has started a reasonable number of young warmbloods, fear of stuff on the ground (especially among horses bred to be careful jumpers) is not a super unusual problem, though in this case it sounds somewhat excessive.
And, another point to consider, is that even though you know much of this horse’s history, there may be some experience from its early life that you are unaware of. And it’s also possible that something happened in your absence that you are not being told.
My best advice is to buddy the horse up with an even-tempered friend, go back to basics, and also to cross-train.
Truthfully I’m not real familiar with Monty Roberts so I just did a quick youtube search and watched a trailer loading segment. No clinician will be “perfect” but there’s some minor things I have problems with, with his methods in the particlar video I watched, but to each his own. You can still always learn something positive.
I would change your approach on the scary objects and see if you have better success with it: Don’t make it about the object at all. Instead, make it that you are just going to so happen to work on yielding the hindquarters 10 feet away from said stack of ground poles. It’s not about the ground poles. You are not trying to get him to the ground poles. But you are trying to keep him attention on YOU and get him to listen to you, and ignore the ground poles.
Honestly, most of the time that horses are scared of something is because they are so focused on the object they are scared of, they aren’t paying attention to what else is going on, and more importantly, they aren’t paying attention to the rider and/or handler. If you change that dynamic and always expect the horse to pay attention to YOU at all times, well, now they don’t have the time (or spare attention) to even look at anything else that is scary.
Yeah, sometimes the situation calls for allowing them to go ahead and look at whatever object is scary to them. Of course, if you are asking him to jump something he HAS to be able to look at it to judge his distances. But I think the majority of the time that you are asking him to do ground work and work around a scary object, you should actually ignore the scary object and make him listen to you instead. Make the thinking side of his brain work, rather than the reactive (spooking) side.
So, something to ponder.
Good idea and certainly not going to hurt him!
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