Shy horses
Help and advice to help your horse cope in company
AS WITH HUMANS who are shy, some horses aren’t very confident around other horses and can panic in situations where they feel trapped or overwhelmed by the closeness of other horses. Why does this happen?
“Working in close proximity to other horses can be difficult for many horses, whether that’s sharing an arena at home, or staying calm, confident and focused in a warm-up arena,” says behaviourist Hannah Weston of Connection Training.
Hannah explains that this can be caused by a few things:
■1 Young or green horses are often wary when first taken into spaces with other horses being worked or ridden. Naturally, horses display certain behaviours when meeting new horses as they get to know each other. In a working environment, we don’t allow for this, so green horses often don’t know how to react towards the other horses, leading them to get excited or anxious.
■2 Horses who have had insufficient socialisation, such as those who have been kept on their own for a long time, will often be wary around strange horses. Similarly, horses who have been kept in a stressful herd environment — such as when there is resource guarding over limited hay piles — will often develop anxiety about being around other horses.
■3 If a horse suffers an accident or incident in a certain situation, this can cause them to be fearful in that situation in future. For example, if one horse bolts into another in a warm-up arena, it can cause fearful associations with other horses in arenas.
“In all of these situations, horses will show their fear through behaviour such as reluctance to enter an arena, shying away from other horses, ear pinning or threatening to kick if other horses come too close, and more extreme behaviour such as rearing or bolting,” says Hannah.