Just browsing Reddit and came across this post
I’ve never heard anything like it! I’ve seen nasty horses, horses who just wanted to do their job and not be bothered, but never one like that.
Anyone heard of anything like it? I’m pretty creeped out by the idea of a horse acting that way!
Stallions will do predatory things if they feel threatened. Stallions will kill foals. Horses (and donkeys) will attack dogs in the field that are bothering them. Check out the videos of stallions attacking toy horses put in the paddock as a prank.
Horses have a range of behavior that allows them to survive quite nicely in the wild on the open range. We don’t get to see it in captivity that much.
I think that’s what’s throwing me honestly because how often do you see even the most rank stallion acting predatory towards human? They may be aggressive but I’ve never seen a horse stalk a human child!
I had a medium sized pony who would aggressively (as in out to kill) stalk wild animals in his field. He was gelded late FWIW and always retained that “little extra something” in his attitude. He was a sweet pony but could easily gear up and become pretty hot to handle in hand. He never exhibited any aggression toward people BUT I always kept his quirks at the top of my mind. He was one of my heart horses I posted about recently in another thread. The day before he died he went after a rabbit and that rabbit was very lucky he was close to the fence line.
Sorry for your loss! 
Imo there’s a difference between being hot and what that poster is describing - they say they were worried if they fell off that the horse would hurt them. I’m guessing that means they thought the horse would attack them? I’ve never experienced anything like that!
Way back when I was a student riding at my university’s riding club, there was a school horse that had a reputation for trying to intentionally hurt its rider.
He was a big Selle Français gelding that everyone knew they should try to stay on at all costs, because if he got his rider off, he would back up to kick or trample him/her. He shattered one my friends’ elbow that way. I was always petrified to ride that horse (he had a huge, unpredictable buck in him) but he was a nice ride and a very nice, powerful jumper. He was of course never used for beginner riders. As far as I know that horse was not abused or hurting in any way…but who knows.
Oh I think it’s possible. Take a look at some of these and they are waaaaay beyond aggressive:
I also recollect reading about a standardbred stallion who was so scary that they led him with a pole and he wore a metal basket around his muzzle. Can’t remember his name and a quick Google didn’t turn it up, but he was a heck of a sire so they put up with his other “quirks”.
I did have a warmblood gelding try to attack me in his paddock when I went out to retrieve my horse’s fly mask. This was 5+ years ago, he’s now a junior’s dressage mount and is very chill. But he was a bad bad boy then!
The other thing to remember is that horses attack each other quite frequently and if they are in a situation where the victim can’t easily escape and get well away, serious injury can occur. Horses attack. Most domesticated horses have been taught young that it’s not worth attacking people, the reprimands are too fast and targeted. But some don’t learn it.
I don’t think that makes the horse a psychopath. It is unusual and does make a horse I wouldn’t want in my barn.
In my teens there was a horse like this. I was warned before I rode him to stay on if I could, because if he got you off he’d make an attempt at homicide. Because I was a teenager i was afraid to refuse the ride.
He tried to launch me but after that warning I was damn sticky in the saddle.
I rode through the entire bucking nightmare and then I said never again. I’d flat him but the cc course was not happening.
I distinctly remember a picture of that horse on the cover of a magazine as a kid in the 70s, but I cannot remember the name of the horse or the magazine. It made an impression, though!
Disturbing that most of these stories involve keeping these horses for young ppl to ride, or breeding such a great trait into the next generation.
But it was another time…
I figured it out - the horse was Nevele Pride. Here’s the picture I think we both remember:
Guess he didn’t mellow much after his racing career! If you google, there’s a Sports Illustrated article that describes his racing and biting and kicking!
And a great video of his hijinks…
Barbara Livingston recalls a photo shoot. Note rubber covered bicycle chain (?) on his halter
Topsider was a TB stallion by Northern Dancer that would bash his head into the stall wall when bored. They would find paint chips from the wall in his mane.
Topsider was on the dam line of a stallion with a very aggressive temperament that I use to ride/train. He was the only horse I’ve personally handled I thought aggressive enough to kill someone. He had a keen way of sizing up how knowledgeable the handler was and what boundaries he could push. I remember a non-horse person getting into the arena with him once and he tried charging and trampling him.
I’ve also known some other TBs to absolutely lose their marbles over seemingly nothing at all.
That’s the magazine cover I remember!
Great sleuthing!
Nevele Pride
There was a huge TB stallion at my barn when I was a kid who was incredibly aggressive toward almost everybody and everything. My trainer walked into his stall once to put his halter on and the horse picked him up by his shoulder and began flinging him around. My trainer actually broke his own arm beating the horse to get loose.
He was owned by a woman who knew nothing about horses and she was the only person he was not horrible with, but boy was he awful to everyone else. He had to be held when trainer got on or he would swing his head and try to bite trainer’s leg. Once he got going under saddle he was actually fine and was an incredible jumper, but he was a bit of a monster on the ground.
I’ve known two horses that were similar.
One of them was just always an ear-pinning, nippy type of gelding that you had to watch. He was gorgeous and nice to ride, but a bit of a sneak-attack type on the ground. One day he was out in the pasture and his owners’ young (maybe 6 or 7 at the time?) son had gone out into the pasture by himself for some reason (yikes). When people realized he was missing, they looked in the pasture and saw him laying on the ground, blood on him, the gelding standing over him with blood on his muzzle. Amazingly, no major damage was done to the boy, but it was a horrifying situation. I don’t remember what happened to the horse, but I know he was gone not long after that.
The second horse was one that a good friend of mine bought as a weanling and raised and trained herself. He showed aggressive tendencies from an early age. I remember him as a yearling trying to chase her out of his stall (rushed across the stall with ears pinned and mouth wide open). She had to use the pitchfork to back him off and protect herself. One day in the barn, a young boy was walking past his stall and he came from the back of the stall and lunged over the half-door and bit the boy’s head. Then came the day at a show when my friend was in the stall with him kind of patting on him and hugging him. He was clearly not impressed with the affection and before I knew it, he’d grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed her to the floor of his stall. I jumped in with a pitchfork to chase him off just as he wheeled around and was lining up to kick her. He would have killed her or at least tried, I feel sure.
She got rid of him with full disclosure about his aggression. Word got back some time later that one day while his new owner was riding him, she stopped and a friend was adjusting something on his bridle. He nipped at the woman and she sort of scolded him and popped him on the side of the nose. He flipped out and attacked the woman, taking her all the way to the ground while his owner was literally trying to stop him (and couldn’t) from his back.
I’ve never known another horse as mean as him.
I know of a few that were inherently dangerous to be around, for no particular reason. Well handled as youngsters and in later life, but not the sort of horses that you could take your eye off of when around them. Several were sired by the same stallion, which was a horse I would not have bred a mare to for that reason (among other reasons). One of these was bred by some good friends of mine, and she was a horse you did not want to be around or near. My DH was walking through her paddock one day, at her owner’s house with the owner, and the mare attacked, at the run, across the paddock, trying to kill both the DH and her owner with teeth and hooves. They only just managed to escape the attack. She had a lackluster race career, then my friends wanted to breed her to my TB stallion. I refused to breed the mare, and suggested that they NOT do that. They gave the mare away to another breeder, who did get the mare bred to his stallion… I think it was pasture bred. I don’t know how the stallion survived this. But, when the mare was due to foal, a foaling attendant was present, and the mare was being dangerous. He went into the stall, and grabbed the newborn foal, who he felt was in danger, and pulled the foal and himself into the corner of the stall. The mare lambasted the two of them with multiple kicks, killing the foal instantly, and severely injuring the foaling attendant, broken ribs and pelvis. That was the end of her career as a broodmare. The SPCA eventually took possession of the mare, and passed her on to someone else. Years later, my friends, who were her breeders of record, got a phone call from a girl in a remote town, who told them what a lovely horse it was, and how much they loved her. The child was taking her to local horse shows, winning prizes, and everything was lovely. The mare must have been 20 by then. I would have liked to see that personally to truly believe it.
I had a horse who was ruined by truly bad handling in his early life. By the time I got him, at age five, he was super-defensive, and would bite or kick without any warning. We were very careful with him, but he got me once in the middle of my back when I spent a few seconds too long bent over his leg in the stall. I had a huge mouth-shaped wound that bled copiously from that. He once lunged at a person walking by his stall and bit her in the chest. Luckily she was wearing a thick coat, but he tore a big hole in that. He only actually managed to kick someone once but it was bad- the horse very calculatedly looked sideways and just nailed the guy in the middle of his thigh as he was walking too close past him. I was just opening my mouth to tell him not to do that and then BAM. It was awful.
When I first got the horse I had to groom and tack him up in the crossties with a chain over his nose and a crop handy, but by the end of our time together (I lost him after a few years to cancer), we had a routine and he was more settled and trusted us more. I could never, ever trust him, though, and we had really strict protocols about who handled him and how to keep everyone safe. Poor guy. He was made into a mean horse.
I once rode a mare for some trainers who were marketing her as a children’s hunter. She had a very nasty spin-buck move and once when she got me off I saw her aim a hind leg at my head. The hoof whistled past my face as I flung myself away. She was circling back toward me when someone caught her reins, luckily. I don’t really blame her, though- she was never comfortable in her body and these people were not doing right by her. After I found out how they were trying to market her I stopped riding for them, even though I had begun to click better with that poor mare. But I didn’t want to be connected to clearly unethical sales tactics, and these people checked some bad boxes on that end.
Same here! You just didn’t complain about anything, in those days. You just did what you were told 
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