RIDING BLIND and BLINDFOLDED

Different Horses different attitude.

We first start with the riding in the dark for spooking.
I hope some of you have experienced riding at the time when lets say 18:00 will get dark and we started 17:30 and now going towards the darkness , How many have this experience?
As we go towards darkness Horses start to pay more attention to their surrounding's and they panic and spook a lot in that period of time (day and light going to night and dark).

This kind of reaction to the darkness is one of the basic instincts of the Horse from the moment of birth , Why ? Because this is the exact time which the predators start their Hunt and Horse is one of their prey. Therefore we can understand exactly where the panic and spook comes from.

I hope everyone would experience this because you will know what I am talking about in action to experience something for yourself is very much difference to something which I describe , isn't it?
The above is the root of what I am going to talk about in future so please give me your experiences and knowledge on this one , thank you so much.

For those who have not experience this please be very careful because the Horse which you know very well could be something else in these times and you never expect what is going to happen (Western Saddle is very good for these times and spooky Horses and those which panic at the time which I am speaking about why because when the horse panics and jumps side ways you have lot more grip on the saddle especially with your knees and stirrups) and you have lot more chance to stay in the saddle during the spook or panic. And it's the best to give it to someone else to do this part for you if you are new to what I am talking about so please don't go and try because if anything bad happen I will never forgive myself , always be very careful.

Please give me your thoughts so we can move on to other things which concerns the Horse vision , spooking and panicking.
Actually Spook and panic in any kind of living creature uses all the senses and the information from outside especially a Horse which has been food on the predator table from long before (52,000,000 years). In order to survive they have abilities which we don't even know , we pretend to know Horses or any other living creature but actually we don't for example we don't know for sure what colour does the Horse eye recognize and many many other secrets of the nature but now science is helping us to know them better .


The placement and structure of your horse’s eyes is vastly different from a human’s. While we can easily wear glasses to correct poor vision, this isn’t possible for horses.

Also, we are used to a clear field of vision in front of us. Horses, however, have amazing peripheral vision with two blind spots—one directly in front of its nose extending around four feet in front of it, and the other behind the tail, about ten feet long.

When you consider the front blind spot, the abilities of jumping horses seem all the more incredible. The horse loses sight of the obstacle when it is a few feet away and has to rely totally on the rider to tell it when to jump.

Horses also are unable to focus their eyes the way humans and most animals can. Have you ever seen a horse raising and lowering its head as it looks at an object? It does that to adjust the focal length, moving until the object comes into focus on its retina. Also, since the horse’s field of vision doesn’t overlap—the right eye sees what’s happening on the right side of its body, and the same on the left—it’s amazing that the horse isn’t confused all the time by two images that don’t match up at all.

The horse’s eyes also act something like a human’s bifocals. If the horse lowers its head and looks up, gazing through the upper portion of the eye, it can focus on the horizon. However, if it needs to look at something closer, it will raise its head to regard the object through the lower portion of the eye, where it can focus more clearly.

When you see a horse startled by a sudden movement just behind or beside it, its peripheral vision has sighted the movement but it has not yet had time to focus on it. Even when the horse is traveling a familiar path, such as to the stable or pasture, it can be startled by something as small as a paper blowing past.

Horses’ night vision is generally superior to that of humans. Horses have a reflective panel on the retina that helps to gather all available light at night. However, horses have a much lower sense of color than people. While they can distinguish green and blue, a horse’s sight is mostly in shades of gray.


Woman wins in dressage with blind Horse.
http://www.guidehorse.org/news_blind_dressage_horse.htm

Please see this one too:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s545781.htm

I am glad that you find it interesting I hope everyone who deals with Horses read these and know them better we have to learn until the last day of our life from Horses that is the only IH thing that we could do with Horses the only thing that I call IH is learning from them then bring our experiences from what we have learned from them to action and bring them to action by great deal of patience and PATIENCE and PATIENCE.

To my knowledge those without PATIENCE should not work or have any kind of contact with Horses this is very crucial.

Some people think they know everything (you know who I am talking about) they don't even give the chance to some one to explain what he/she know what are the experiences that he/she has in their life , unfortunately.

I don't like blind folding a Horse.
It's natural the Horse becomes calm so he/she wont do anything wrong and uses the other senses but the calmness is natural actually he/she becomes more careful.


Q - So if it is a natural calm, why do you not like doing it Persianhorse? I only used it once with a horse that had moved to a new yard and wouldn't go in the stable. After trying everything else, we blindfolded her and she went in without a problem.

A - Sometimes I do it similar to your case for example to desensitize the ears.
I did not say I don't like it to use for something similar to your case .
I said it in general I don't like it .

PH