I groomed Magic and then we did something different. I walked him out to the arena in the Oak Pasture. We lunged in the arena and he did good. There were lots of distractions. You can see a long way from the arena but there are no houses and stuff like I expect Magic has seen thus far in his life. And Magic was interested in it all. We did not see any elk, deer, bear, armadillos or coyotes but I always expect the horse smells a lot of this stuff that we humans are not aware of. We walked back to the barn and I rode in the Bull Pen. We covered all of the Bull Pen for the first time. We were walking through some tall yellow-brown sage grass. All of a sudden a large yellow-brown cat jumped up about 6 feet in front of us and ran away. This was a perfect opportunity for a big spook. Where I ride I often jump the unexpected animal underfoot. Riding a new horse always creates some level of concern as to what the new horses reaction will be in these inevitable situations. Magic gave the cat no notice whatsoever! I thought Magic has a lot of confidence, but there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. This was the test and he passed with flying colors.
There is one spook situation that seems to effect most horses and I have hit the ground several times in the past few years because of it. It is my own dogs. The horses see the dogs all the time and are used to them but there is a situation that can cause problems. If the grass is taller than the dogs and they are running towards us, when they break out of the grass, the horse often spooks bad. The horse knows something is coming, they can see the grass moving, and when the dogs (labs) break out of the grass, they keep on coming. They are “coming at ya”. Deer jump up in the grass as near or nearer and the horse may spook but not as bad. That is because the deer, rabbit or whatever is running away which is much better from the horses point of view.