I was reading an article in a magazine where a guy that trains police horses teaches them to walk over a mattress. At first they went around it, then tried to jump over it, then hurry and finally he gets them to walk on it.
LOL...yeah that's the common response to stuff like that:)
When I did it, I lead them first, IMO, they feel more secure following. Anything you can do to get them use to anything that scares them just makes for a quieter horse. I know some trainers that just start stuff like that riding.
Even if you get them use to whatever leading, they can regress when riding, it just won't get as big a fuss, and they'll, in my experience, go ahead and so it faster.
Becky
Break over. Talk to yall later.
At the barn I used to work for, one of the things that we did was nucance training. Anything and everything we put those horses through. Tarps, bridges, sacking them out with grain bags, water, cap guns, umbrellas. Have you ever seen a police horse trial? They are so cool. One of the courses I remember, is that to enter, the horse had to push a multicolored beachball that was three times his size out of the way with his chest to get into the ring. Then he had to go past a guy waving a news paper, and then a sleeping guy on a bench that jumped up and opened an umbrella in the horse's face. The horse had to go past something scary in a box that rattled around and made a lot of noise, go over a bridge, through water, over a covered bridge/box made out of trash bags, and then the officer had to shoot a gun from the horse's back. There were probably other things, but that's what I can remember.