There were 10 or so from my cousin’s barn, but the rest were from somewhere else. Apparently this guy puts on a ride like this several times a year. It was an older fellow and his wife and they seemed like very nice people. It takes a lot of preparation to feed that many people!
The sniffing noses thing seems to work with all horses as a general greeting. I’ve used it quite a bit when meeting strange horses. It seems to relax them. I forgot and did it with a strange dog one time though and liked to have got my face bit off. I didn’t get bit, but I got snapped at so I made a note to self that dogs and horses don’t work the same way. ;o)
I blow in Bay’s nose all the time, he likes it and blows back. Cyn and the pony both turn away when I blow in their nose. One of the horse books said that’s how you tell if a horse is friendly :~)