My husband took in a horse for training and we filmed a little of what we did with him. Since there has been a few people here that has talked about their horses being shy I thought you might want to see what he did with him and how he progressed.
Some background for the horse:
He came to Norway from Holland and apparently was kept in a barn with an indoor arena attached to it, the horse was simply hardly ever outside!
I participated in a television series about animals, where I shoved different training solutions, and through that TV-series I met him.
The problem with him was that he had been spooked when I rider took of her jacket while on his back. He got startled, bucked, and scared again when she landed on his hind-end; he bucked again and the rider flew off (and got stepped on etc… making it very dramatic, but all ended well for the rider).
After this incident he got scared of anything happening over him and he had to be held by several people when mounting him.
So, in the show I started by teaching him the chair game, and it went very well.
Hubert, a 5 year (I think) old Fresian gelding, was a great learner with a super temperament, he caught on really easily.
The owner got her homework and a week after filming the first session we went back to show the results so far. He did great, but then we decided to take him outside to film him there since the weather was so great. That's when we discovered that his problems were a bit bigger than we thought.
A little bird landed in the sand… OH MY GOD!! he said.
A car passed on the road a quarter mile away… OH MY GOD!!!! he said.
A dear moved in the field so far away that it was hard to see what it was… OH MY… well you get the idea… !
We filmed the chair game (that did work well enough for the series), but talked to the owner about the dangers of riding out with this horse the way he reacted to every thing. Shortly after my husband happened to be at a weeks course not far from his stable so he started visiting the horse to see if he could help them a little. When he returned home he brought the horse with him for training. He stayed here for three-four months (about - can't remember exactly) and here are some of the clips from the training.
There are several little clips and I will post them in separate posts so that you can comment and ask questions about them if you want to. If you don't have any comments I will just let the clips speak for themselves :)