I've been bolted with three times. The first time on a horse that was as unathletic as they come - I had no influence whatsoever, and Dobbin ran head-first into a metal wall (we left a dent!) but due to the slowness of the event, it didn't feel scary. At the time I didn't register what had happened.
The (probably) second time was over very quickly, and the horse came out of it on his own, and again it was only in hindsight that I realised just *how* little control I had - we're talking twenty meters and blazing speed, so it was over quicker than I could have reacted, so that might not have been a true bolt after all.
The third time was the real thing. It felt like sitting in the backseat of a driverles car which was hurtling down the motorway - there was nothing whatsoever that I could have done to influence what was happening. The horse was in pain, as I worked out afterwards, but it was _frightening_. I've been run away with many times, sometimes at high speeds, sometimes across open countryside - it's never nice, but I learnt how to a) anticipate and b) stop it, so a runaway never struck me as particularly scary. A bolt is... in a category of its own, and you definitely recognise it when you encounter it. Thankfully, it's extremely rare - in twenty years I've encountered three horses, all three extremely anxious types (the first one died thanks to running through a fence and into a car when she was two, I knew her as a foal). The first one probably was hereditary, the other two had major undiagnosed pain issues.
But yes - like all panic/anxiety issues, hearing someone shrug it off is infuriating.
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Date: 2012-12-04 08:07 pm (UTC)The (probably) second time was over very quickly, and the horse came out of it on his own, and again it was only in hindsight that I realised just *how* little control I had - we're talking twenty meters and blazing speed, so it was over quicker than I could have reacted, so that might not have been a true bolt after all.
The third time was the real thing. It felt like sitting in the backseat of a driverles car which was hurtling down the motorway - there was nothing whatsoever that I could have done to influence what was happening. The horse was in pain, as I worked out afterwards, but it was _frightening_. I've been run away with many times, sometimes at high speeds, sometimes across open countryside - it's never nice, but I learnt how to a) anticipate and b) stop it, so a runaway never struck me as particularly scary.
A bolt is... in a category of its own, and you definitely recognise it when you encounter it. Thankfully, it's extremely rare - in twenty years I've encountered three horses, all three extremely anxious types (the first one died thanks to running through a fence and into a car when she was two, I knew her as a foal). The first one probably was hereditary, the other two had major undiagnosed pain issues.
But yes - like all panic/anxiety issues, hearing someone shrug it off is infuriating.