Chrisp on a Cracker!! And I bet he wonders whhy the dog won’t come to him???
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I did not understand why horses feel this way until two riders I knew, in two separate locations, the same year, stepped into what looked like puddles on the trail, and many hours later the horses were at last hauled out of those deceptive quagmires, utterly exhausted. Relatively tiny feet, long skinny legs, heavy bodies. Horses die in ‘puddles’, and I think that they understand this on a primal level.
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This.
@fledermaus, my mare would never walk into a puddle, unless she saw me walk through it first.
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I had a great trail dog and she would lead the way, nose to the ground with my horse following her. If she came upon a puddle, she’d trot right through and Woodrow would follow without hesitation. He hated any other dog except her, he loved Carrie.
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I did a Trail Trial once that had a birthday party set up with balloons, streamers and kids at a table. They gave them drinks, cookies and games to play and “rotated” the kids every two hours. We had to ride up to a woman standing next to balloons and the noisy table. I thought it was a great idea.
For some reason film crew stuff can bother experienced trail horses, my girl isn’t happy about it. She’ll go past, but she’s definitely on alert. Lots of riders will take another way to avoid filming.
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Where do you ride that coming across film crews might happen?!
I cannot even imagine my reactive gelding’s response to such a thing - thank goodness we ride on boring private land devoid of such horrors!
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Anywhere in So. California there’s professional film crews and lots of school/students filming.
This is what the professional stuff looks like. They also film in state parks and will set up on trails.
The student crews don’t have the big trucks but they’ll set up with cameras, microphones, etc.
Half the time I decide not to pass and ride somewhere else. You never know what could happen.
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Trail skills…I remember an essential one. Standing. It really comes in handy when the rider has to make a pit stop behind a tree, loops the reins over her arm, and conducts the necessary business. But the horse wants to reach that one plant…over there…almost got it….(whup, whup, whup of their lips meeting as they stretch their neck out).
“Aaaaaaaah! No! Stand! You’re pulling me away from behind the tree!”
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Or you ask another rider to hold your horse. That was pretty funny though.
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New one for me… The farm adjacent to my bridle path put down several hundred feet of thin greenhouse plastic grow film in one of their field rows. It was so windy yesterday that some of the tethering got loose and there was about 100ft of it flapping in the wind, some of it so airborne it was taller than my house…
Hadn’t ridden my horse all week… He didn’t seem to mind too much, but I wasn’t about to push it by walking under it. 
Typing that reminded me of one of my late geldings. He was a great trail horse too, but he was absolutely terrified of the large agricultural impact sprinkler that the farm used to pull out in the height of summer to water the corn fields. I don’t blame him, some of them look like demonic ferris wheels turned on their side, and the noise they make (especially the BRAAAP, BRAAAP between each rotation) is loud.
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Yeah, I was riding alone. Sadly, I ride alone a lot.
A horse I used to compete would have been terrified of the corn in that field… but the sprinklers? No problem!
Yes that was on. and yes we rode right under it as that was the trail!! It actually felt nice as it was quite hot that ride.
Gotta love horses. 
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We had something sort of similar passing rows of hoop houses/greenhouses that had plastic around the frame. Plastic that unfortunately was battered and tattered by wind and storms. Yes, watching that flap from down the road was definitely exciting!
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A tractor left running, but unattended by any human.
A bicyclist approaching you, very slowly so he doesn’t spook the horse, so slowly that just as he reaches you, the bicycle tips over towards the horse.
150 to 200 school children on an end of school field trip.
A heron flying up out of a culvert you’re crossing.
An entire flock of wild turkeys flying up out of the bushes next to you and flapping over you about 10 feet above.
A crew of paintball players crashing around in the woods. (The leader called out to then and told them to freeze until my squirrely mare got past them.)
For mares only: a freshly weaned baby horse with no dam in sight.
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I once had this happen and a particularly stupid turkey crashed into me as it tried to fly away and landed in my lap. My reactive gelding was so terrified he didn’t even know which way to run, so performed the most amazing piaffe instead, which gave me enough time to shove the turkey off (where it landed on the ground and ran off).
My DH thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen… he said he didn’t know who looked more surprised, me or the turkey!
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Both horses didn’t really care about the kangaroo crossing the path in front of us…
The next thing that happened was that burst through the trees in front of us and crushed with hubby’s horse, who shied sideways. My horse started bucking as fresh.
Hubby half came off, I managed to stop the bucking. Hubby managed to get back in the dressage saddle.
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I would imagine some horses would not be impressed with the movement of kangaroos, esp crashing around in brush.
But something much smaller that struck terror in the hearts of several horses I have ridden? Armadillos. When they are startled, they leap into the air and make this odd squeak before scuttling away (like bad video game characters). Legions from hell couldn’t be scarier…
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Of course the horse standing their ground against the bear was a mare!
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