Oakley would like me to think he's a very high-strung horse. Well, he is pretty lively, but he's gone to great lengths to convince me that he is too difficult to ride, so I should just leave him to munch his hay in his paddock, because every time we left the paddock, he'd find something to be frightened of. Our walk up the path to the stable, or the walk from stable to arena invariably went like this:

"Ahh! What is that frightening thing?" (It's a piece of wood in the grass.)

"Nooo! I'm too scared to go near that!" (a pile of horse-poop on the path.)

"Oh my! No, I can't walk past that" (scattered sawdust.)

"Help, I'm absolutely terrified of that horrible thing! No, no, I won't go near it! (It's the tarp covering the hay that you just had your head under munching away a minute ago when I came to get you out of the paddock, you wallnut-brained equine.)

That last one was sort of the tip-off that he might not be quite as high-strung as he was making things out to be. Now, I'm well aware that the way horses see things, and the way they process visual cues is almost autistic, in that the same object, viewed from two different angles can be perceived as something totally different and one way will appear threatening, another way not. But, still, I'd expect he recognize a pile of hay as something non-threatening.

More to the point, if I am going to event with this horse, I'd better fix this tendency or the first flapping overcoat will probably send him into hysterics. We'll never get to the start gate, much less all the way around a course. Besides, I don't want to die because it's a blustery day.

Trail rides were a continuous series of jumps and starts. In the first few days he spooked at:
- Boulders
- Flowers swaying in the breeze
- A goose flying out of a nearby bush
- A pile of wire
- A distant flock of crows
- A tarp (a different one from the hay-bale)
- Another tarp
- Everything that even looks like a tarp
- A water-hole
- Farm implements
- Sheep dogs barking
- The sheep the dogs were guarding
- A log on the path
- A stick on the path
- A bucket
- A sabre-tooth butterfly, attacking from the flower that was swaying in the wind
- The Republican Presidential Candidates Debate

... ok, that last one was just me, but, while I'll give him the surprise goose flying out of the bushes, he has jumped at just about every object we've come across and, while the vast majority of his spooks are short stops, he has also decided to run full-tilt from a boulder, crouching in the bushes. Getting him to walk along a path was fraught with danger. I made a safety strap to hang onto. About the only thing he hasn't spooked at is his feed bucket.

He also refused jumps, trot poles, and even shied away from the stuff piled in the corner of the arena.

Now, I've ridden horses that were spooky before, but not to this degree. Moreover, he was not that spooky at his old barn, and he's already been to events, so I had to figure out what was brining this on. For a while, I tortured myself: was it me? Was I doing or not doing something? Was he upset at the new barn? What do I do! I don't know! Frustration! Help!

Time for more super-fast learning. Reading blogs, articles, talk posts, and, of course, my coach. A quick distillation of advice revealed that when he spooks I should:
- drive him on and push through the problem
- wait, don't drive him on, let him work through it
- pull back, come back another time.

...and it turns out, in fact, all of these prescriptions are correct! But it depends on what we're doing, where we are, and what we're trying to accomplish. Riding around the arena, just stay away from the spooky corner at first, but gradually get closer each pass; on the trail, let him have a good look at the scary object, but hold him there until he decides it's safe; spooking and refusing an obstacle, well, then, push on.

In all this the key lesson is, that the fundamental core of a horse spooking comes down to this question: does the horse trust me? Am I the leader of our little herd? Because if I am not, he is, and that is the root of his increasing spookiness: he believes he is the leader and he is trying to protect us. That's the job of the leader: to protect his herd and in this case, he's going to get us out of danger, stat.

So the root of the spookiness is I am not yet the unchallenged leader. And thus, for the past month, and for the forseeable future, much of my "riding" has been, and will be, from the ground, first, as a safe means of establishing my status as unquestioned leader of the herd and second to sack-out (who thought up that term?) and progressively desensitize Oakley to many objects without risk of becoming an impromptu bronc rider and another trip to the emergency room.

The leadership part is to get him to move his feet first, to make him respect my space, to let him know, in no uncertain terms, that I am pushing him around the ring, making him go in the directions and ways that I determine. After a few sessions, he is already starting to pay more attention to me and my instructions than the scary whatever-it-is he's trying to avoid.

The desensitizing part is to gently produce something scary, like a plastic bag on a stick and make sure that he gets to try -- and fail -- every way he can to get away from the object, or drive the object away, until he eventually, he chooses the only correct answer: to relax and trust me and my judgement that it's not dangerous. Once calm, then bring the object a little closer, deal with another freak-out, and so on until I can wave it around him, touch him all over, with no reaction. More and more objects, fewer and fewer reactions.

Now our trail rides are a lot calmer, our jumps are getting higher again, almost no refusals (almost), and trot poles are a breeze (mostly) and, as I gradually cement my position as leader of the herd, his movements become more and more graceful, my aids get to be more and more subtle.

I guess we still have a long road ahead, but I'm already enjoying the journey more and, now, he is, too.