Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Avoiding puddles

From: Roberta

Dear Jessica, this may sound trivial but it's got me wondering whether my horse has trouble seeing, or is just ignoring me, or is playing a game of some kind. I've had him for six months, and he's been a pretty good boy but we haven't really had much chance to spend time outside. Now that it's finally good weather, we're riding the trails. He's a good horse for trails, except for one thing. It's not the trails where we have the problem, it's at the end of our driveway and on the little piece of road I have to go down to get to the trails (we live one farm down from a forest preserve).

Here's what he does: if it rained the night before, you know how there are always little puddles in low spots on the driveway and the road? My horse just totally refuses to step into those puddles no matter how much trouble it is to step around them or how much I hassle him. On the trail he goes through water just fine. It's just the puddles on the driveway and the road. Someone told me that he is frightened of his own reflection in the puddles, but that doesn't make sense to me, how would he even know it was his reflection? So what is his problem, can you tell me? Or is it something I'm doing wrong? It rains a lot around here, so we get those puddles at least once or twice a week. Help, please, I just don't know what to do and how to make my horse go straight through puddles on the road. Someday I think I would like to event him, and what will happen if he won't go through a water jump on the course? Or would it be more like the water in the forest preserve, which he doesn't mind?

Roberta

Hi Roberta! Don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong, and neither is your horse. You want him to go straight through whatever's in front of him, but he's protecting both of you by avoiding the puddles on the road. Horses really dislike stepping where they aren't sure what they'll be stepping into - or on. The trouble with puddles on driveways and roads is that you can't ever be sure what's under that flat reflective surface. It's not your horse's reflection that worries him, it's the fact that he does not know whether the puddle is half an inch deep or four inches deep or three feet deep, and as a prey animal for which flight is the primary protection, he's not eager to put himself at risk by stepping into who-knows-what.

I'd steer him around the puddles if I were you. You can practice leg-yielding, which is a useful exercise anyway. Since he goes through the little brooks and creeks that are always in the forest preserve, he's obviously not averse to walking through water - as long as he feels reasonably secure about what's under it.

If you were an event rider, you would walk through every water obstacle at least once, noting the depth, the footing under the water, and anything else important, before you ever took your horse around the course. Eventers don't ask their horses to jump, canter, trot, or even walk into "mystery water". There are good reasons for this. If the water is shallow, riders who don't mind getting splashed may choose to gallop or canter through; if the water is deep, experienced eventers will bring the horses in at a much slower pace. If the footing is slippery or rocky or full of frogs, you'll want to know before you ask your horse to step there. If the footing is uneven and has deep holes, it's not a suitable jump for an event course - but that's exactly what you can encounter in the driveway or on the road!

In my area, there are roads that seem to "grow" potholes overnight. Not only do riders avoid taking their horses through innocent-looking puddles on the road, but drivers of cars and trucks are very careful to go AROUND the puddles instead of THROUGH them, because a flat spot in the road on Monday can be a two-inch hole on Thursday, and a six-inch pothole by the following Sunday. On the surface, after a rain, riders and drivers who just see the water have no way of knowing how deep the underlying pothole may be. It's not worth risking a horse's leg - or a car's axle - to find out.

I think that you and your horse can afford to go around those puddles - without feeling bad about it.

Jessica

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