Update - he may have neurological issue. He is in hospital bc he had episodes of recurrent choke, has had some changes in how he chews, is showing grade 3 laryngeal hemiplegia that is new, and “miraculously” stopped cribbing (he was a determined cribber) so we are exploring neuropathy or nerve injury in neck . 😞
Oh no, not the update I had hoped for. I’m sorry. How old is he?
How often do you ride? How fit is this horse? I have one that becomes spooky when he’s fresh. Not hot, not quick, not tense. He’s still quiet and lazy no matter how many days he’s had off…but the freshness just manifests as spookiness in this one.
Jingles for your boy. Fingers crossed!
So, the repeat neuro exam was better and they think he may have just had an accident in pasture with his collar that caused the choke and laryngeal issue and those seem to be improving the last few weeks. We have been working on body work bc he was so freaked out by the hospital stay, he was there for awhile bc he colicked to. So now we have put weight back on, had new saddle fit, done body work, treated for ulcers (found on scope), and I’m starting him back just doing lots of trail rides to loosen him up he is the most calm I’ve ever seen him. I loved all the advice and stories bc It helps knowing everyone goes through some tough times trying to figure this out and I think the take home is: make sure it isn’t a health issue, stay in the moment, keep them working and focused, and some days they are just horses and in a mood we won’t understand. Right now, I’m just thrilled he’s alive so being in the moment is awesome
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Having now owned TWO that developed corpra nigra cysts… I now always check eyes quickly when a horse develops a visual spook. Maybe that wasn’t your horse’s issue but eye issues are less uncommon than many realize
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I had the exact same experience. Calm horse, with a wicked spook. I did a complete vet check, scoped for ulcers etc. I wound up sending him to “cowboy camp”. (think Buck Brannaman or Ray Hunt) He was exposed to lots of different things (cows, chickens, roping etc etc) After 2 months at camp, he came back a different horse. He’s quite confident, and there is no more spook. I learned a lot. It was one of the best things that I ever did.
Did you steal my four year old? :lol:
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I have a horse that spooks. Used to so dangerous that people thought my OTTB should be a western bronc. General Vets said eyes were fine. But were they? I finally moved him to a new younger vet who was interested in research. Turns out my horses has enlarged Corpa Nigra (spelling?). Anyway, it looks to be what he was born with. It means that his “sunglasses” in his eyes get too big in the sun. So his vision is diminished in bright light. This also is not good when riding on wooded trails where light comes and goes. On top of that we think he is near sighted. Very few Vets ever test for near sighted or far sighted. If your horse raises his head like a giraffe and stares hard, ( usually followed by a spin/bolt) good chance near sighted. My horse literally can’t make out what the noisy thing is coming up the road. Or a bunch of animals running in a distant field. i would be scared too if I were prey animal and could not see in the distance. Recent research has shown that at least 30-40 percent of horses are either near or far sighted. This explains a lot of spooking. None of this is physically fixable. If you have jumper that spooks they are most likely far sighted. Not a good fit for jumping. What i did to stay alive: had to do leadership ground ground work building trust. That meant i had to get my english riding butt to a natural horsemanship trainer ( most of these trainers seem to be at Western barns) and learn exercises to build trust. Additionally I taught my horse to self sooth by lowering his head to the ground when he wanted to be a giraffe. He will now lower his head when he gets scared when I am leading him. The lower head also releases some sort of calming chemical in their body. These kind of horses used to get tossed to the auction etc, thrown away or destroyed, branded as killer horses. Most English barns would try and whip these horses into shape if they were far sighted and spooking at the jump. Those horses should have been retired from jumping. Unless one develops a strong leadership relationship with such horse it is continued agony for them to be asked to jump something they cannot see. They are not reliable mounts. My horse has a home for life, he is a rescue OTTB and i took his issues as a chance to learn better horsemanship skills. But i won’t sugarcoat it I did have to give up my dream of regular competition, day trips for events, because he freaks out anytime we go somewhere new. If I can get a stall the night before and plenty of time to show him the scary stuff in the distance then we can do an event. And the 2nd time he sees something he is a normal horse, like hey i got this. But its a lot of work. I am 62 now, he is ten. When I feel I no longer have the balance to sit a spook he will be my pasture pet. My horse got lucky with me as his home. But many do not.
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I hacked out with my trainer last week and, wouldn’t you know it, her horse flipped out about a log. Someone had been painting fences and had left the can of paint and roller and brush wrapped in plastic on the fence. I figured he’d spooked at that and didn’t even see the log in question! But it was the log. She’d hopped him over several others in the line but this one was too rotten to jump over and they’d gone around it instead. Apparently, this is a thing for horses. 
Why horses spook at logs:
Does it get better or worse if you increase work? I think that’ll give you an answer. If it gets worse with more work, it’s most likely medical. If it gets better with more work, it’s a freshness issue. I have a pony like this. If you don’t ride him a few days, he won’t get hot or forward…he’ll still be lazy, but spooky as sh*t.
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Curious for an update @Kmisschuck !
Is there anything to be done for corpra nigra @vxf111 or @Exracehorserider ? My horse has a lot of trouble with VERY bright and VERY dark transitions. I wonder if this is his issue.
Corpra nigra cysts can be fairly easily treated with laser ablation. Think of a balloon… they just put a little pinprick in the edge of the cyst and it deflates. Quick, pretty painless, not hugely invasive. Horse comes home the same day and has meds for a week. Is a little light sensitive while on the meds but that’s about it. In the grand scheme of potential horse treatments, it’s a nothingburger to recover (absent complications).
I treated 2 horses with laser ablation for multiple corpra nigra cysts and have seen barnmates treat 2 other horses.
It’s not clear to me that exracehorserider is talking about the same thing as I am though.
Thanks for the info on Corpra Nigra. I was told my horse has congenital enlarged Corpra Nigra ( born with too large of a Corpra Nigra) which might be different than a cyst? But now I want to find out more. After 4 years, I have mostly had to work on trust since his vision is a bit blocked. So usually I ask him to ignore scary things and just trot on. If we must due to a more extreme spook, we halt, then back up and then I ask him to trust me and trot on. Backing up is not the most common advice I have been given over the years for spooking, but saw the idea on a Warrick Shiller video and it works the best for my horse so far. Works 90 percent of the time, and i never feel 100 percent safe on him in new territory. Always on alert.
I would rule out epm. And, we have a horse whose personality and willingness improved dramatially on u7 oil.
This is my warmblood. Jumps anything but will spook at the flowers as we canter by in the hack. Clown!
When would your horse spook in your description above? Sounds similar to mine. I have one that gets calm after a lunge, great body language and ground work and looks like you could put a kid on. Rides great. Then at nothing out of the blue, a violent shocking spook. He does have an honest spook at spooky doors noises etc which I can explain and preemptively stop which is not the problem. It’s just the unexplained random violent spook ( drop shoulder, spin/dance/explode for 3 seconds) that is strange. Otherwise there’s a lot of harmony in handling on the ground and the ride. He tends not to spook at shows and people comment on how good and easy he seems! When he spooks I’ve been able to get after him and go back to task but I’ve fallen off once and had to get back on. He does spook on the lunge the same way he spooks under saddle (from calm to violent spook n spin in a heartbeat). I’ve been able to despook him to real things but it’s the ghosts I dont see that I cannot address.
This sounds exactly like my gelding. I bought him about a year and a half ago. I did lameness exams, ulcer treatment, a ton of calming supplements, joint injections, checked his eyes, got chiropractic done; pretty much did everything to rule out that it was health-related. His spooks would come out of nowhere and he spins so it was really hard to stay on. He would spook minimally once a week.
I bought him as a jumper. He was advertised to be a 1.15m jumper. He was amazing when I tried him and for the first month I had him. Later, we learned that he was worked into the ground. He would be in his pasture for a few weeks then suddenly brought in to jump big jumps then the cycle would repeat. I think he got burned out.
Last summer, we took things small and slow. Turns out he really loved showing in the hunters. It was night and day his reaction in the hunter ring vs jumpers earlier in the summer.
Fast forward to a year later, we’re at a different barn (same trainer) and he has a friend in the pasture that’s been really great for him. He still spooks but it’s not as frequent and it’s not as dramatic of a response.
Feel free to message me if you want to chat more! Or commiserate, because it can be a bummer when your horse is 95% of the time great but then 5% very spooky!
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What my Vet said was that my horses Corpora Nigra were larger than other horses, and so in bright light its like you wearing sunglasses that are too dark, harder to see. No a horse born with larger corpora nigra there is no way to fix it. We get by, but it involves a lot of my horse trusting me. And we also think he is near sighted so on a trail ride, things in the distance are blurry. I came to the conclusion that my horse does better going back to the same trails etc as he seems to remember what was there before and then is much calmer. He will never be a horse that enjoys going to new places all the time. I also have to be prepared to get off and hand walk him by the scary object. I also use a " horse speak" where I exhale loudly, this is what the lead mare does in a herd to say its ok, I looked and no danger, it does work!
