Fleece Blinkers for the Spooky Horse

Cupid is generally a fairly straightforward horse, but one of his biggest quirks is his spookiness in our outdoor arena.  He's lived at the same barn for all 6.5 years that I've owned him, and has been in this arena hundreds of times but as I've mentioned probably many times before, he is often spooky and distracted in there.  Some times he's totally fine, but the past few weeks he's almost always been spooky, by the corner where the gate is.  (I would have expected him to like the gate corner and try to move towards it not away!)  There are some props on the ground, but nothing unusual and they've been the same.  He does it both directions.  Luckily he doesn't do anything terrible, he just scoots away and gets tight.  So not dangerous, but very frustrating!

In the past I've tried, to little avail:

- ignoring the behavior aside from a little half halt, and try to keep him straight and moving on as best we can, and just doing the most important work in other parts of the arena;

- turning circles as soon as I feel his attention drift;

- walking up to the sides where he gets distracted (he doesn't seem scared, and will walk right up to and put his nose on each of the various things lying there); and

-working hard away from the spooky area and resting there.

Also I didn't notice any difference when he was on magnesium or ulcergard for unrelated reasons - still about the same number of days he was totally fine versus spooky.

My latest idea was to try fleece blinkers.  I got these kavalkade pads, which have velcro and were very easy to attach to the bridle: https://www.ridingwarehouse.com/Kavalkade_Pure_Lambswool_Crown_Poll_Nose_Chin_Padding/descpage-KPLP.html

Kavalkade Pure Lambswool Padding

Cupid didn't mind the blinkers and didn't have any sort of reaction to having them on.  He raced with french cup blinkers, but luckily this didn't bring back any memories for him!  I rode him as normal around the property to warm up.  (He is totally fine everywhere else, there's just something about that arena.  And not always the same spot in there either, recently it was more halfway up the long side.)

The current spooky area

The blinkers did seem to help somewhat, but not as much as I hoped.  He was still squirelly but it did seem easier to refocus him.  But that may be in some or large part because by putting the blinkers on I kind of made this ride about working on this issue so I think I rode him even more proactively then usual.  

So back to the drawing board, but thought I'd share this experience in case anyone else has thought about trying it!