Tips To Teach Your Horse To Spook In Place

Questions are always coming in about how to get my horse to stop spooking at things when I ride! So, I wanted to share my answer with everyone.

1. You will NEVER fully take a spook out of a horse!

Anyone who tells you that you can teach your horse to never spook is lying to you! It is impossible. You know why it is impossible? Because horses are a flight or fight animal and it is in their nature to be cautious and that will never change. Understand that a horse with a spooky type personality is who they are and you can not change personality just like a humans personality can not change. We can drastically improve it, but never fully change it.

However, through exposing your horse to many situations in life and using the proper techniques to desensitize, you can get your horse use to many situations, and make the spook a lot less!

What truly defines a horse's spook though, is not if they spook but what they do after the spook. Do the spin and run, sidepass away, or stand to investigate? If they do anything but stand to investigate then that's is where this next step comes in to play.

2. Turn and Face to Spook in Place

Though a horse is naturally bred to be a flight animal, there is one part of them that contradicts that and what makes them give us the ability to train them. CURIOSITY! If you have ever heard the saying "curiosity killed the cat", the same could be said about a horse! That curiosity, however, once engaged can teach the horse that whatever might be scaring them might actually not be that frightening after all.

Using the Turn and Face method can engage that curiosity needed to overcome anything! So I made just a short video talking about the Turn and Face.

Check it out below... And as always, if you like these tips feel share!

Want more Tips? Check out the Leadership Club for all the exercises needed to desensitize your horse and more!