When I was riding in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana back in Sept. of 1993, My horse Cody, had no problem with me taking out and putting on a rain slicker while I was in the saddle. We had no clue that doing it while on the ground in front of him would be a problem. We had just finished a lunch break when it started to rain. As we were getting ready to mount up, I took my rain slicker off of the back of the saddle to put it on before mounting. All of a sudden he spooked and pulled the reins out of my hands, galloping off back in the direction we had come from. Luckily I didn't have to hike back too far to catch him again as he stopped to graze in a small meadow about a 1/4 of a mile away. It could have been a bad situation though, and ever since then, I've always trained my horse to accept me adding or subtracting clothes on the ground as well as on the saddle.
