I have a green, spooky horse (exacerbated by vision issues) and I 100% agree with this. We do lots of hand-walking, exploring, snacking, and positive reinforcement, especially when something in the environment changes. A grassy corner where a predator could hide getting super lush in the spring would definitely qualify in my horses’ book as something that would warrant his attention. Like, I’m a little nervous about what’s under those bushes and I’m not a horse!
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SNAKES
Only half-joking, but if the OP is really brave, maybe poking around with a stick (sans horse) might not be a bad idea.
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Absolutely not haha. We have two of the top 5 most venomous snakes (aggressive ones too) in the world commonly found around here! In nearly a decade we’ve never seen a snake down there…and only had a couple pass through the property…but I’m still not going to risk disturbing something aggressive if it’s there.
I’m on my own here, it’s my dads property and just my two horses. Probably could let the old one hang out in the corner while I ride…she’d likely just stuff her face the whole time.
I have taken her down there prior to getting on for a good look and she seems unbothered, and mostly interested if seeing if she can get to the grass. I’ll do some groundwork with her down there and just keep chipping away under saddle…preferably with my butt staying there and not in the ground!
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Ha, I bet you have some interesting wildlife, though hopefully not TOO much on your actual property.
We do have poisonous snakes in my area, but fortunately the population has declined.
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It’s possible that the first spook was legit and your coming off is what actually amplified the situation and made her more wary of it now. Horses don’t really enjoy people coming off of them. That probably scared her as much as whatever was in the corner, and so she might link the corner to you coming off.
Not that it’s your fault that you came off…not at all. Just that the experience may have been more distressing to your mare than you realize.
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Definitely possible! Not once has she ever shown any inclination to want me off (I was the first person to sit on her and I’ve put most of her miles on so far). Never a buck, nothing. Can’t say I enjoyed ending up on the ground either…haha. No injuries beyond a bruised butt fortunately.
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OP, you said that it’s Spring where you are. What did that corner look like in the middle of winter? Did the tree lose it’s leaves, did the grasses die back? If so, what’s on the other side of the tree?
At the barn where we ride one of the rings is bordered by trees on one side. In spring and summer you can’t see through them, but in late fall through early spring you can. A greenish horse that I used to ride at our lesson barn, could be a bit looky, spooky or distracted in fall and early spring when the “view” was changing and she could see people and horses through the trees or hear them and not be able to see them. She would get used to it, until the seasons changed and then rinse and repeat for a little bit.
Does that make sense? Does something along those lines possibly apply to your corner? Perhaps the foliage really sprouted between rides and that is what took her by surprise initially and is now taking her a bit to adjust to?
Good luck!
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Looks like that year round pretty much! Except when dad gets keen enough to hack the grass down on the embankment. That branch has been hanging down for months too. We don’t get very cold here, and few trees change colour or lose leaves, we’re sub tropical. Other side of the tree is neighbouring properties which are basically just paddocks, no livestock. There’s rarely anything going on near the fenceline, and the view doesn’t change during the year.
At this point I think I just have to go with something in her horse brain has decided it doesn’t like that corner and we just keep working through it best we can, and based on her general sensibility, I think she will get over it in time. I can’t wait to get my trailer early next year and start getting her more exposure out and about too. Currently all she gets is the occasional pony up the street off the old horse, as I’m not game to ride her on roads solo yet, and we have no access to trails.
From added information…you really don’t know if you are the first person to sit in her in her 3 years of potential rideability or not, do you?
Even a very few unsuccessful rides years back can install unfortunate memories if its never corrected and taught properly… There could be some undesirable learned behavior lurking in her past. Remember we either train or untrain with every interaction whether we intend to or not.
And thats OK, all the above advice still applies. Just be aware it might be what she unintentionally learned somewhere along her journey. Doesn’t seem shes very good at it or seriously trying anything which is in your favor. Just keep her focus on you and her head up so she cannot drop a shoulder and spin out from under you, keep that door closed.
You just never know when buying on the very low end or rescuing horses you don’t know well. Especially nicer horses as she is.
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I have a mare who decided that the water trough in the adjacent-to-the-arena pasture was spook worthy every single day. But to make it worse, it was the water trough IN HER PASTURE. She drank out of it happily. I dumped it out frequently enough to know that nothing was living under it. Just something about how it looked as we trotted and cantered by upset her…particularly from tracking to the right. She wasn’t spooky anywhere else or about anything else. I picked the fight in the beginning. Maybe even for the first year or two of the behavior. Finally my dressage trainer was out and laughed at her leaping dramatically away from it and said, “just use the energy that you get from the reaction…put it to good use”, and it totally changed how I viewed the behavior. So I started asking for transitions and leg yields and movements in that place. She spooked every day for 11 or 12 years before she finally got bored with it. She might still do it a little, but I so infrequently ride her (she’s mostly ridden by my daughter these days) and I haven’t asked.
All of that to say that sometimes they just decide that something looks scary. I think you’re on the right track to consider vision and comfort and all of that. But sometimes they just don’t like something no matter how used to it they get and no matter how many ways you try to address it. If that’s the case, just make sure you channel the increased energy for good rather than reacting to it less positively!
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Fair point, to the best of my knowledge (and based on her total lack of knowledge, she knew quite literally nothing at all undersaddle), I assume I was the first but yes it is possible there was someone before me.
Ah horses. Wouldn’t life be easier if we could just talk to them! I wish I was more confident about sitting the spook but yes I think you’re right about trying to channel it, she’s better if I really ride her forward past that corner. I do hope this one doesn’t last a decade though…haha
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How it looks from the back side is totally different to her huh…lol. Horses 
i had a mare that i rode past a driveway with a boulder and little plants surrounding on each side of their driveway entrance. One day we went by and my mare shied and wouldn’t put her side to them…(wouldn’t walk past). Lol…they had white-washed the boulders so now they were so alien.
One thing i’ve noticed about most of my horses is that there are nature things and there are people things. People things (vehicles/equipment/buildings/even fences) are inherently more scary. Not to say that an fallen uprooted tree can’t be a monster, but basically, human-things are more suspect.
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IMO, this is a great way to make that corner permanently spooky. If you’re in a show in the middle of your round or your flat class, then yea ride forward to distract them and get them thinking about something else. I think of that strategy as a bandaid- it’s good for a short term solution but IMO it’s not going to help you long term training wise.
When you’re at home however, I don’t want any bandaids… I want to work on this and teach my horse that this corner is the place to be. If it’s already a scary corner AND you’re adding pressure by pushing them forward every time they get close to it, you’re only making that corner less fun for them. Let them look, let them stop if they want, let them have that freeze response to process. Then if they choose to keep walking forward and investigate the corner, let them. If they choose to avoid the corner, that’s fine too just go back to whatever you were working on. Once you come around to the corner, take the pressure off- no leg, no heavy contact… as long as they’re looking and heading TOWARDS the corner. Once they turn and leave and head away from it, back to work. Keep this up and eventually they’ll go deeper and deeper into the corner on their own.
I have no doubt that you can MAKE her go into the corner if you use enough leg, I just don’t think it solves anything. You’re just teaching them to listen to your leg but you’re not teaching them to be brave on their own. Home is the time to check things out and process it, not just ride through it.
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I don’t know if your “usual suspects” include these, so I’ll throw out the things I’d check based on past experience - ulcers, EPM, and vision issues.
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It seems like you have my horses sister from another mister.
Some horses are just spectacularly sensitive at a certain place in the arena. My horse is very spooky and will act out at one end of the area with a gate he has walked out of multiple times. He’s reacted at this gate with 3 Pro Trainers. Did I say he’s gone in this arena for 7-8 years? He’s hypervigilant and I actually inquired with his breeder if he was proud cut. Another clinician I’ve worked with also noticed his hypervigilance.
My horse lives out 14/7 also.
My suggestions riding my brother from another mister: I notice in both of your pictures that your horse’s ears are not on you. I suggest keeping them ON you. Rub your leg, work your inside rein, make your horse leg yield or shoulder-in to that corner. Your horse ALWAYS has to have an ear on you, especially in that corner. Do thinks that takes your horse’s mind off the corner and on to you there. Shoulder-in. Leg-yield by cutting the corner early. Transitions. Lengthening on the short side. An ear HAS to be on you to listen to your aids. Pleasant or harsher reminders will help your horse understand that she can’t concentrate on the outside, she has to concentrate on you. For a mere 45-1hr a ride out of her 24 hr day. Be very fair to her. 
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My friend has an arena with an end similar, there is high ornamental flora etc. A chicken popped out of the grass MONTHS ago and gave my VERY brave guy a heart attack. (brave as in- can march into the jumper ring at KY and clock me around without batting an eye).
He now MONTHS later eyes that grass and end of the ring waiting for the chicken to reappear (no worries- chickens find other areas to pop out of 
I circle and circle there now when I ride. I also “make him work” in that area, collection, entension, turn his head to the inside, serpentines.
Who knows what dangers lay within
I haven’t read all the previous responses carefully, just skimmed, but it looks like most are addressing this from a training perspective. I just want to make sure it’s been considered that the problem may be physical.
Lots of sensitive types, if there is something physically uncomfortable going on, will “blame” it on something in their environment, and then they react to that thing. I experienced this myself when my horse didn’t like the new boots I got him. He moved fine, but was really reactive about a particular corner of the barn until I took the boots off. My old horse was spooking at particular window in the indoor arena the last day I rode him before he was diagnosed with a mildly torn suspensory.
I’ve witnessed this happen enough times that I always attribute sudden spookiness to physical discomfort. The really hard part is when you think you’ve figured out the problem and remedied it but the horse still expects to hurt and so still continues to react for a little while. If the problem is in fact fixed, there should be no more than one or two spooks at the scary corner and then she should be fine. If she continues to react you probably have not found the true cause.
Good luck! This detective work can be one of the hardest things about horse ownership.
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I often trail ride through the groves along big rural property fence lines. My horse is 99% of the time rock solid even when alone. There is one homestead that on the fence line has a small marker mounted on the post (think 4”x6”) that says their dead dogs name and that he was a good boy. It marks his grave. EVERY single time I ride past that post my horse gets giraffe tall and often leap frogs sideways.
I mentioned to my trail riding buddy the other day that maybe my horse was seeing the dog’s ghost. I said perhaps an ethereal Rottweiler or some other hound of the Baskerville was probably barking aggressively from the great beyond …. Guarding its fence line for all eternity.
My friend laughed and told me said dog was a chihuahua lol.
Horses 
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Fairness to the horse is very much something I always strive for! And of course trying to keep in mind that at the end of the day…she IS still very much a green baby. She is not the 20yr old been there done that seen everything semi retiree I also own.
We did some groundwork in that corner yesterday, during which her only interest in said corner was that the grass sure did look like a great spot for snacking. I’m pleased to report that we had a lovely, spook free ride today! She had a couple of little looks but nothing more. I spent the whole session just focusing on getting her relaxed and moving forwards and she responded really well to that. Best ride we’ve had in weeks!
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Fantastic!!!
It’s important to train your greenie that riding is all about a conversation with you. What happens outside of the arena isn’t something she needs to be concerned with. She never knows what you’re going to ask. You’re setting the stage for her whole riding career/life and the rides don’t have to be long at this stage. But paying attention to your conversation when you ride is a mental game that even a youngster can handle. As long as she’s not the explosive type (needs another approach), she’s getting it that she has to pay her short young attention span to you.
Yaaaay!! May those great rides continue!!!
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