Raincoat Spooking Horses?

Deb has left a new comment on the post "Scary Objects and Spooky Horses": "I went out this am to feed my two mares in there stalls/runs and it was raining, I wore a dark windbreaker and hood, they both acted like I was bear! I spoke and petted but they both acted too fidgety for me. How best to work it out with them?"

Hey Deb, interesting comment and question you sent in. I think there is a lot about how horses see, especially concerning colors or at low light that people, or at least I, don't understand too well.

Are there some other circumstances like heavy sudden rain catching the horses out in the open? or heavy rain hitting a metal roof and making a God awful racket? I got caught out in the open in a heavy rain storm with a young horse once and he was still all worked up even after I got him underneath some cover. So is it possible that maybe your horses didn't see or hear you coming because of the rain and you caught them by surprise, much like the adrenaline we get when we narrowly avoid being in a traffic accident.

On the speculation on just how well horses see color and at night or low light - you can google it and see a lot of articles on this from scientific explanations or theories to experiments. Here are a couple article on the vision of a horse:

Understanding How Your Horse Sees

How Does Your Horse See?

A couple of years ago I did a short day light experiment where I place several things one of my horse's has never seen on the fence and road him up to each to see how he would react to each. Each item was close to be the same size and there was little to no wind so there was no scary flappiness going on. And before any of you write me and tell me flappiness is not a word,......if you know what I meant, then there is no need to bring my making words up to my attention - leave that to my daughter.

Anyway, back to my experiment. I used a folded blue tarp, a folded section of green canvas tentage and a yellow rain slicker. Which do you think my horse had the biggest issue with? It was the blue tarp. The green canvas tentage and the yellow slicker he had absolutely no problem with. But he was a little concerned with the blue tarp as he stopped and needed encouragement to approach it.

Another time I was looking for some cows that escaped a holding pen at night. I was moving along a dirt road next to railroad tracks and the moon has cast a shadow of a tree across the dirt road. My horse stopped and did not want to move forward. It took me a minute to figure out that he must have thought the shadow was a big hole. I just took the time for him to get comfortable where he was until I could get him to step up into the shadow.  Survival instinct for sure, but bad night vision?  I just don't know.    

Anyway, on your question on 'how to get them through being anxious when you approached in a dark wind breaker and hood',.....the way I'd approach it is like anything else new to them, present them with that situation again, dressed in a dark coat and hat/hood at low light, and see how they react, progressing as slow as you need to go until they are comfortable with your different looking approach.  Good luck and safe journey.