It’s so bizarre that flying decorations in trees don’t warrant even a second look but a bicycle gets a violent reaction. It doesn’t even have to be close by. Oh well, we’ll work through it somehow. Have you done any work getting your mare used to the wheelbarrow?
I do go out of my way to ride her by them whenever they are putting out hay. I'll trot her by at a slow trot so she has to take a good look at it, not fast enough for her to pull out or shy, but enough impulsion that she has to keep moving towards it.
She really is getting better. I guess you could call it slow habituation.
Her two bug bears are wheelbarrows and 55 gallon oil drums. In both cases there is a quite reasonable explanation. The wheelbarrow is because some of the little kids were pushing each other in the wheelbarrow down the hill by the ring and shrieking at the top of their lungs, and of course ran the thing right into the ring fence as we trotted by. She almost jumped out of her skin.
The oil drums is because we were working in a ring near where some guys were loading oil drums on a pickup truck. They left the tailgate down, and when they pulled off naturally the drums just rolled out the back. And down the hill, and by the ring. And they were partly full of liquid, so they rolled irregularly and made a loud sloshing noise. Gracie just FROZE and stared at them as they rolled - she was shaking so hard I thought she was going to fall down. I jumped off and ran to her head and consoled her (and then I turned her around so she couldn't see the horrible things any more.)
She's getting better about those too, a couple of jumps in the ring have oil drums built in them, and she doesn't even flinch.
Cool decorations. Doesn’t seem like it’s been a year. I took my granddaughter to her school carnival. It’s behind a subdivision. We left to go about 7pm. It took at least 30 minutes to get around the block to go home. I don’t get people driving their kids from house to house. Coming back my neighborhood was packed too. Someone even had my driveway blocked. My husband had the porch light off. I figured he got tired of treating but no...the 30 dollars of candy were gone within an hour.
Good luck with Mina... sounds like you’re making great progress... I’d ride a bike from the house out to feed her every day for awhile. ;~)