Funny things horses do when they are green beans. What have yours done?

[J-Lu]

My greenbeen is scared of the world. So I’ve spent a LONG time getting him to be curious about “scary” items and approach them rather than freaking out at them. He is a very curious horse by nature and he seems to need to put his nose on everything.

But I have now created a monster! If he wants to take a look at something in the distance, he’ll pick something odd looking nearby and go sniff it. Then he stops and looks off in the distance…without moving his nose or changing his posture. i know he’s looking, not sniffing. i say “OK, lets go” and he says “Oh wait, I’m sniffing still” and he gets all intense about the object he’s sniffing…and then his eyes slowly wander off to the distance while his nose is still plastered against the “scary” object.

He was equally distraught about items when he was under saddle, so I used to let him sniff the things that would freak him out/make him spooky. Now, I can be walking by the formerly scary barrels and he’ll do a 90 degree change of direction on his own and say “heeeeeeeeey, lets go check out those barrels!”. Or “hey, what’s that over there???” and he’ll drag me over to the “scary object”. Clearly, that’s not what I want but yet I’m elated that he’s increasingly curious about the “scary” thing rather than freezing and bolting from it. Much easier to deal with!!!

My trainer covers his eyes and shakes his head.

[billiebob]

I used to ride a then-4 y.o. OTTB mare when I was working in the stables of a boarding school. Unbeknownst to me and my friend on her newly acquired very large 7 y.o. ISH the outdoor baseball field and lacrosse fields that we had to cross to get to the outdoor riding ring had been rented out to a Boy Scout fair one Saturday. Our babies thought it was just grand and I actually had to pull the OTTB’s head out of a plastic trash can! She was such a cool little mare.

The first horse I actually owned was a 5 y.o. OTTB. My then-boss and I switched horses one ride so I could try one of the schoolies in a new bit while she played with my guy over some new-to-him fences, one of which was the plastic barrel jump. She was letting him cool out on a loose rein while she gave me a mini-lesson. Greenbean decided he wasn’t done jumping–he picked up a trot and took her right over the barrels before she could even gather her reins up! This was a greenie that I once rode in the indoor when then-boss’s son began cleaning out the gutters…with a leaf blower (obviously did NOT realize I was in there and later apologized profusely)…and greenbean didn’t really care.

ETA when my current horse was learning about cantering in the old barn’s indoor he once ended up jumping the barn’s goat. She laid down in the track right as we were rounding the corner and I didn’t have the chance to pull him up or around. So over we went, and horse has not had an excuse to spook at a jump since. And yeah, keeping in the theme of my post, he’s an OTTB and was 6 at the time.

[beowulf]

Way back when, when I was a working student for Stephie Baer, we used to hack around the acres of wooded trails at her farm in Orange, MA. My then-green TB had a serious allergy to stepping on those red efts/eastern newts – they were BRIGHT ORANGE and would come out after a nice summer shower. Spooky wasn’t spooky of a lot of things then, but he REALLY exaggerated a high-step walk around them. I am not sure how he even saw them – my friend’s Perch/TB never did…

[SmartAlex]

We had a horse named Hairy. Hairy was born here during a lull in horse interest and he also had a slightly crooked front leg, a sticky stifle and the worst metabolism imaginable so it was decided at an early date that Hairy would be a useless freeloader his entire life. But like any good horse people, we got him used to tack and taught him the basic “whoa and go” so throughout his life, if someone decided they wanted to toodle around the arena at a walk or trot and do not much at all, Hairy was always happy to oblige. He was a solid citizen with a Kindergarten level education. What he knew about riding could be collected in a thimble, but he was good natured so there was never any problem.

One day, I thought I’d give Hairy a little ride just to make him feel good about himself. I remember when I went to unbridle him, I dropped the bridle crown over his ears and all of a sudden Hairy’s eyes got wide… “Uh Oh… What do I do?” He had no idea about dropping the bit. If this had been covered at an earlier date he had clearly forgotten the correct answer. He just stood there holding it with this bemused and confused expression while I laughed at him.

Then I opened his mouth for him and took it out. Dear ole Hairy.

[A3dayeventer2009]

Mine jumped an entire bounce gymnastics, from a trot - and cleared it.

[sascha]

Big Lick Canter. She was barefoot. Not gaited. Not very strong. I was terrified she’d blow both her hocks before she learnt to canter like a normal horse. She didn’t, but she held onto that nonsense for a couple of weeks. I laughed a lot in those weeks because BABY HORSE DOING SLOOOOOOWWWWWW MOTION CANNNNNNNNNNTER.

I’ve only had one other horse do anything similar, my big guy, but he only did it once for a few strides. Mind you, his baby horse canter was pretty ridiculous anyway.

Both those horses made me laugh every day Big guy is gone some years, but the mare is still making me giggle on the regular.