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Horses never cease to amaze me and it's so difficult to predict what they are going to do. When I brought Winnie the mare home I kept her in a round pen in the other horses pasture so they could get to know each other but not hurt each other. None of my horses are territorial (or so I thought) so after a few days I let Winnie out with the crowd. They were all fine for a few minutes and I was getting ready to leave them alone when Tuffy went berserko. I thought he was going to kill Winnie so I took my chances and went in there to get her out. I was stunned, I have never seen Tuffy behave that way. He's not even top dog in the pasture, he's second in command. When the top dog got in between Tuffy and Winnie (I swear he was trying to protect Winnie) Tuffy started kicking him for all he was worth and the top dog backed off, a very unusual happening and hasn't happened since, the pecking order is back to where it was.

Yeah, it's like everybody is comfortable with where they are in the pecking order, then you introduce a new horse and it upsets the apple cart and everybody has to work it back out where they fit in, and I swear, mares are as bad as stallions. I'm surprised about your gelding. But then, I my old gelding, Tennessee, did something similar one time. I had just bought Bluebell and she had 3mth old Blade by her side. They were alone in the pasture at the house and I decided to bring Tennessee and Truly, my other mare, over there for the night so I could take them to have their teeth done the next morning. I turned them in there and the first thing Tennessee did was try and check out the baby. He was just curious, but Bluebell was NOT amused and charged him and tried to kick him. WELL, he was top dog and was NOT going to be treated that way. He ran them all over that pasture, hemmed them up in a corner and proceeded to kick the tar out of Bluebell. Poor Blade didn't know what to do coz he was in the corner so he tries to go over the fence. I'm screaming like a crazy woman and throwing rocks at Tennessee and my husband is on the other side of the fence trying to keep Blade from hurting himself. They broke it off, I took Tennessee and Truly back to my in-law's, and I learned never to do that again. Whew!

Do you think horses can get "brave" being around you. I have mentioned before that the mares gate is right by the first feed bucket. Even if no feed in them it's still the boss mares territory. Sarah Lee got kicked kind of bad one day when I led her over there so I had to get aggressive with them. Number 2 backs off when I get on to her but the number one will back off when I swing the rope at her but then try to come back on the other side of my horse. I really went after her yesterday and she finally backed off but after I stepped out (I'm still standing on the other side of the fence) Sarah Lee got a little attitude and stood her ground for a few minutes and the boss mare got close but didn't challenge her. This stand off went on about 10 minutes and then mine backed down and walked away. Could she have been acting that way because I was still there, even though not in the pasture?