Whenever he stops on a dime and turns toward one direction with ears erect and perfectly still - I have learned there is something there (even tho at the time I saw nothing). We continued to ride, but as soon as he heard this "beast" he would stop, shake and trumpet!!! I had NEVER experienced this before in all of my horse endeavors and it was quite something- actually sounding elephant like. This time I DID notice a riding lawn mower along the side of the highway (how the guy stayed seated is still a wonder) - all the Buddha saw was what he thought was a mountain lion !!! He trembled like a vibrating chair and alerted his barn mates with his trumpeting. They all quit grazing and were on full alert, as this dreaded machine went back and forth - appearing and disappearing thru the trees.
I have noticed that when the Buddha is truly frightened - he goes into show mode. I've actually had people ask me how I trained him to do dressage ( fancy equine foot work). My answer always is the same - scare him to death! He prances at a very high speed until he feels he is safe from harm. It's at this point I decided to stay seated and work thru the behavior and not opt to dismount and lose control of my horse. We worked for over an hour making huge circles toward the "beast" with constant verbal assurances and finally were able to ride sans the fear. He was soaked from sweat and I was ready for a nap!
MY friend finally showed up and I dismounted without a problem. All the other horses had settled back down to graze as Bud had saved the day. After a nice cool down with a hose ( both of us ) we walked around the dreaded area where the menace had been. Bud was very content to simply graze and not have to be the white horse in shining armor for his equine family.
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