Things Fantazia is afraid of makes my inner grammar-police go mad, but! This is going to a short, lighthearted post. The sloppy grammar is quite in line.
(A fun list of things many horses tend to be afraid of.)
The quantity of things Fantazia is afraid of depends on her fitness and freshness. As with all horses, scary objects multiply when she’s fit and fresh. In the arena, she’s afraid of everything from crisscrossing drag lines to shadows on the wall. Outside the arena, she’s much more sensible–she’s been ridden a lot more outside than in!
Things Fantazia is afraid of in the arena
When she’s fresh, just about anything is reason to spook in the cutting-style arena we ride in normally. It’s round, about 140 feet in diameter, and has a six foot steel wall. Sunlight is terrifying! Marks on the wall are terrifying!
The outdoor dressage arena in Paso Robles, was less scary, but it still had drag lines!
Things Fantazia is afraid of on the trail
In general horses on the trail tend to shy at manmade things encountered in nature, and Fantazia is no exception.
She is also alarmed at some (but not all) rocks, stumps (humans got involved there for sure), some dead trees, the occasional lone flower, and cattle on far-off hillsides. She’s not afraid of close-up cattle, but she doesn’t seem to equate ant-sized cattle on her retina with their full-sized equivalents–no size constancy!
Other things Fantazia is afraid of
Around the farm and up and down the road are neither on the trail or in the arena. In general, because they are in-between places, with both manmade and natural objects, Fantazia does not tend to spook too much. Some things, however, are just too much.
For example, all variations in the surface of asphalt or dirt roads could potentially be hiding quicksand or deep pits.
She’s also afraid of manure forks, because of The Manure Fork Incident. (But she’s not really worried about them unless I try to pick one up from the saddle!) And another training gaffe caused her to fear the arena gate (story in an upcoming blog post).
Generally, letting Fantazia have a good look and approach a scary object slowly is the best thing to do. (as in the video below)
Of course, there are many other scary objects out there! I’ll add the funnier ones here.
Previous Road to Tevis posts:
Introducing Fantazia
Fantazia’s first three weeks
How to calculate the grade of hills
What to do about a broken rein
Fantazia’s mysterious stocking up
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