How to Stop a Spooking Horse using Positive Reinforcement

Begin building a strong halt or verbal stop cue using positive reinforcement while training on the ground. Then transfer this cue and behavior to under saddle training in areas and locations where the horse is very comfortable. Reinforce it often until the response to verbal and tactile cues from the rider's body are very strong so the horse will halt immediately and reliably. This will create a horse that is much more likely to respond to to the halt cue when under duress and provide the opportunity for us to offer support. So if the horse does go over threshold and spook due to something completely out of our control (assuming we always make every effort to avoid the horse becoming this stressed and over threshold), we will have a horse that will respond to our cue to check in with us and stop its feet. Should the horse spook, at the exact time that the horse begins to respond to the rider's halt cue, the rider will bridge or mark the behavior and provide copious praise and food rewards. The caveat to this is that the horse must be well conditioned to receiving a food reward under saddle in various contexts and also not so far over threshold that it will not accept food rewards. Therefore, it's important to prevent throwing horses in the deep end of the pool (so to speak) when at all possible by observing their behavior and redirecting to a lower stress circumstance building up to tolerating spooky circumstances gradually in successive approximations.