Is your horse spooky? Hot? Sore? Just not performing like he used to?
As long as you’ve ruled out any major health issues, I would urge you to consider going back to the basics. Most horses aren’t taught to work correctly, causing their bodies to break down prematurely and hold unnecessary tension.
Ideally, a horse should always work over its back, allowing the soft tissues to act as a shock absorber. When they are allowed to work hollow their body deteriorates exponentially. Reasons why we see younger and younger animals being retired or injected with joint lubricants (ultimately allowing their bodies to continue breaking down).
Not only does this break down the joints and cause skeletal issues, such as kissing spine, but also creates undue tension throughout the body. This tension could be the cause of a horse’s unusual behavior. When a horse feels tension but can’t tell where it comes from they constantly look for its cause. Spooking could very well be the horse’s attempt to flee from the tension, thinking they’ve found the cause.
To avoid this all together we can work our horses in a manner that allows their bodies to correctly manage the stress of a workload. When the horse is allowed to pull through their topline, reaching underneath themselves, they create a type of shock absorption so that they can work with minimal pain/tension.