Hi
In the lessons, have you seen the "spooky Kadina chronicles" and the "Georgia's phobias" series ?
When a horse is getting really afraid, he or she will loose the feel of you so it's normal she stops listening and do anything she thinks she must do for her self preservation.
Join up will help you to create a better bonding with your mare, so that she will, in case of something frightening, look at you first before fiying away. It will help you also to do the desensitization work. Can you give more details about this "shyness" ? she is shy about what ? is which circumstances ?

Hi
Very good advice from Cyril, Make sure you desensitize as much as you can at home. To all kinds of objects. The more different
things the better. And maybe you can have someone at home help you with this. You on her back and them showing her new objects.
Make sure you keep her facing whatever it is she is afraid of,and
try to keep your hands/reins relaxed. Try not to pull on the reins to much. Keep your hands low and close to her body while this is all happening you'll have better control.
I have a 33 yr old gelding that was the same way when he was younger. Hope this helps. Stay calm and have fun.
Julie

Thank you for your comments. Cyril, Lilly, my mare is shying from anything. Especially if she is outside. But even in the indoor arena, there is days where nothing bothers her and then all over sudden she shys from things that she knows. A certain corner where feed is stored is one of the things, a pile of wood outside. A tractor, that when you lead her does not bother her, since she grew up with it. Then wind in the trees. When I came off it was a pile of siding that was taken off the house at the barn. She had seen that particular pile several times before and was not particularly bothered by it, but that day she was. - I did join up with her when I started her and desentizing work, too, but maybe it's too long ago? Or not enough?

Join up and a lot of groundwork will help that's for sure. also do a lot of desensitization work. You can do that with every kind of "frightening" object : a ball, a bag on a stick, an umbrella, etc.. your imagination is the limit. After a while, your mare will gain confidence in herself and in you.
When she his afraid of something, don't force her but do not avoid the frightening thing either. let her smell the frightening thing, then put her at work like circling at canter, and when then make her rest near the "monster", so she associates it with a positive thing.
When you go outside, try to go first when your mare can see around easily, not in a forest or in a bushy area where "monsters" can hide. Also go with calm, older horses instead of alone.
Also, always relax yourself, because if when your mare is afraid, your are also afraid she ll think she is perfectly right to be afraid, as your are afraid too! don't pull reins, breathe plainly and slowly.
If things go really wrong and you're horse is flight mode with you on top, circle him and try the "thumb up" maneuver or and one rein stop. practice that before you need it. It's good to know that in case of emergency, you now how to stop the horse.
Hope it will help

Hi Anibrit - great advice given here already so that should help. I am just thinking of the age factor - you said your mare was 8 years old and you only started her 1.5 years ago so that she was 6.5 years old when you started her. That age should be fine but I am wondering what her background was and whether you have had her eyes checked. It maybe worth having a vet check her eyes is she is spooking that much. As well as join up again, lots of dually work and lots of incremental learning to scary objects I would try just taking her for walks with your helmet on, the dually and a long lead rope out where you would otherwise ride her and watch her reactions at different things. If anything spooks her then walk up to it yourself first and touch it then encourage her to come in and stand next to it or sniff it too. Remember that objects look different from different aspects so take her right around the spooky thing first. Stay as calm as you can yourself and talk to her lots. If she does spook then you have the long lead rope and dually to hold her with. So let her jump back but then bring her in again. It is safer for you to be on the ground than to be riding her initially but cyril's advice is great if you happen to be on her.

Thanks for all those great suggestions.

Maggie. I had Lilly's eyes checked before. I had a horse with moon blindness before and wanted to make sure she was OK...
However, she was not handled much at all before I started her. She was halter broke. That's it. Mostly she was in a herd with other horse and did not see people much. And if so, only for worming and such.
I have a dually. That's a great suggestion. Desensitizing also. I have a flag with a plastic bag on a stick. So far I only did desensitizing work inside, never outside. And that's been a long time back when I did that.

I would like to discuss this issue again. The horse I am riding for an owner is often afraid of the things happening on a little street passing parallel to the outside place where we are training. Desensitizing helps for a while. But it happens often that an unexpected "object" is passing: screaming children, a fast bicycle, and so on. After that I have to restart (almost) at the beginning. Any ideas?
Rudi

Lots of good advice here and I just want to echo the desensitising work. It must be done over and over again and as many eventualities as you can think of. Remember also to do BOTH sides of the horse as they only transfer about 20% of the learning over to the other side - so just because its ok out of one eye/on one side, doesnt mean its ok on the other. Rudi: I sympathise, I am plagued by pheasants in this area and they leap up from bushes and make me jump never mind the horse! I would carry on with what you are doing but you need to build in "the unexpected" into the training, have someone "appear from nowhere" and increase the 'fright' factor steadily. If you have good leadership the horse will look to you for guidance and accept your judgement that all is ok, but you cannot work with high adrenalin - there is a threshold that all animals learn at and its a lot lower than we think. At the first sign of anxity that is the threshold for learning and working with the scary thing. with moving objects, (cars bikes etc.) get the horse to follow the scary thing as it goes away, this gives the horse confidence that he has the ability to 'send it away'. No matter how the horse is reacting human must stay very very calm. Now, having said that, a quick little light-hearted story of how I cannot always practise what I preach!!! One of the horses I worked with was very very flighty but we did a LOT of work with her. I walked in the field one day and didn't know that the owner had let the pig out in the field for a wander round (very tame but very big!) all of a sudden I heard this grun behind me and felt a nudge at the back of my legs; well I screamed, shot in the air, and my adrenalin went through the roof! I turned to Clem (the horse) fully expecting her to be at the end of my 30 foot line having a serious panic and she was looking at me as if to say "What the hell is up with you?!" and was as cool as a cucumber!!!

LOL. Love those sorts of stories, Vicci!
Rudi, personally I'm afraid that I don't have any more ideas than what's on here already, but I write to offer you my encouragement instead! Sometimes spookiness is imprinted so deeply that it takes a phenomenal amount of time, patience and effort to remove the spookiness and replace it with calm, but it can always be done, just to different extents :) Hang in there and keep trying!
May I also suggest reviewing Monty's Q&A: Jan 29.13 Getting Over Fear and Anxiety in the Arena. Here you can find some hope, where he mentions that people told him that Nice Chrome was hoplessly spooky and to just accept it, but of course he didn't and now has a much less spookier horse after years of patient work (how old is Chrome now?).
I like his idea of seeing if one can't devise a way to allow the horse to live in the spooky place for a while, and of the sand on the walls causing them to spook. A mate of mine had a horse who kept spooking over in the rodeo arena. She couldn't figure it out for the longest time until one day she accidently discovered that the sand was flicking up onto his belly and he hated it. For some of you, this may seem obvious, but it wouldn't have occurred to my friend in a million years. Often there's something around that the horse can see that we can't, and we just have to keep looking around until we find it & can deal with it. I can't remember what she did about the sand problem in the end. I think she just didn't go over there lol.
Good luck, Rudi, let us know how you go!

Thanks for your answers giving me some support to not loose patience.

No worries. I know that you know you can do it :)