Our farm is 80 acres of an assortment of rolling hills, wide creeks, ditches, logs, big rocks. IMO, the perfect place to raise sport horse babies. Well today we saw the drawback… a blacktop driveway!! I sold a 6 yr. old, painted TB gelding to a woman who has lusted over him for years. He is one of the best moving horses we’ve ever bred, a natural jumper, brave, the whole package. Today my husband and daughter delivered him to the buyer about 200 miles away. He loaded perfectly, rode like a champ, walked down the side ramp of the trailer parked on the road in front of the lovely farmette driveway in a horsey neighborhood…and FROZE!!! He would not step on the asphalt driveway. No way!! He even back UP the ramp and put himself back on the trailer (I think he just wanted to come home!!) The sound of his shoes and the look of the new blacktop freaked him out!! He didn’t rear or dance - just parked like a mule. Buckets of feed, treats, pushing, pulling, whip popping, NADA!! After about 45 minutes he finally walked across ten feet of backtop and onto the grass. They had to lead him all the way around the house so he could stay on the grass, but when he got to the pen he was to enter that was bright RED CLAY!! Said he wasn’t going to step on THAT either, but was finally coaxed in. Guess along with other lessons in being a horse, trailer loading, etc., I’ll have to start making trip to the Walmart parking lote walking on blacktop!! Who would have guessed??
Our whole farm is gravel, grass and black dirt!! Good news is that the buyer LOVES him!!
Congratulations on your sale.
I have a youngster who wouldn’t step on the ramp…he was ok going in the trailer but not with the ramp…finally jumped the ramp then started eating his hay calmly. Now he won’t be sprayed for flies. When he draws the line he believes there will be no more negotiating…he is wrong. PatO
Horses have little depth perception. When they see dark surfaces even water - to them it’s a black hole. So your boy is actually being very smart - you see a black asphalt driveway - he sees an abyss.
When we have an issue loading on the ramp - we just put down shavings or hay or a cocoa mat and they walk on it just fine.
[QUOTE=ise@ssl;6354939]
When we have an issue loading on the ramp - we just put down shavings or hay or a cocoa mat and they walk on it just fine.[/QUOTE]
Ditto.
[QUOTE=ise@ssl;6354939]
Horses have little depth perception. When they see dark surfaces even water - to them it’s a black hole. So your boy is actually being very smart - you see a black asphalt driveway - he sees an abyss.
When we have an issue loading on the ramp - we just put down shavings or hay or a cocoa mat and they walk on it just fine.[/QUOTE]
Interesting! You learn something new every day! 
I’ve heard that before. We have asphalt and our baabies learn right away to walk on asphalt. its a challenge the first time or 2, so I can only imagine with a full grown horse frozen in position 
Funny. He walked right into the trailer over a wide rubber matted ramp - 7’ wide, 8’ tall, 24’ horse compartment (custom 2+1) from the very first time I asked him to. And our barn has a rubber matted aisle, but no blacktop!! I thought of a lot of senarios when shipped for the first time, but never getting OFF!! The scattered hay/shavings would have been a good idea, but probably frowned on by the neighbors…and we didn’t have any spare. Oh well. New owner loves him and has plenty of time to work with those little issues. A horse to follow probably would have done the trick, too!!
I had that come up with one of my youngsters too, with not wanting to step on the asphalt. It didn’t take long to get him to trust me and take the step, but he was very wary at first.
I had a gelding that never left his moms side or field until he was 3 when I bought/rescued him. Any change in footing made him plant it. Pavement, large strips of dirt, puddles. Once he got over the planted hooves he developed a very special technique I liked to call the “crab” walk.
Picture a 17h Percheron cross lowering himself by spreading out his legs and then doing a flat two beat gait. So it was like a trot, but he would do it one step at a time and have all four hooves down between each step. You could literally feel him shift down below you when he stepped onto the pavement!
It took several months to get him to walk normally onto pavement. He was a bit of a goofball
I looked out and saw a Hippoverian tonight. He was up to his belly in pond. Then he came out and over dead fall trees at mock turkey. I love that he has room to grow and learn. He does cement but we shall see about pavement.
I had one filly who wasn’t scared of the asphalt but was absolutely perplexed by the sound her shoes made on it. She spent the first two days of the sale looking at her feet every time I tried to show her. Silly girl.
We live in the desert and I sold a colt this year that ended up at a farm on the west side of the state. He was terrified of the big trees for the first few weeks. There’s not a tree on our farm. Oops.
Yup…that was the other thing our horse couldn’t figure out… the sound his shoes made on the pavement!! I still think it will be easier to acclimate him to asphalt than trying to get a OTTB to cross a boggy creek!! Different horses for different courses!!!
