I’ve been watching this thread from the sidelines as I have a horse who can be pretty reactive and dangerous. Spent a fortune trying to solve his problems but ended up choosing the retirement route. He is THRIVING in retirement. It’s very bare bones live out kind of place definitely not for everybody that’s for sure. This is a horse who almost got to the point of sedation for hind feet trimming in my care but look at him now! I will say that if his current situation had not worked out I would have strongly considered euth. I’m a realist and know there is no good ending for a horse in his late teens with behavior/medical issues like his.
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OP - I have read yet again your original post. If I’m correct you discuss the following options in terms of living arrangements for the mare:
- Leave at current farm where she isn’t doing well, but concern that the next facility will cause similar issues.
- Retirement - mentions that you wouldn’t see her very often so location not close? Dont say if it is 24 hour pasture board retirement or 12 hours out/12 in. Do the horses go in a group? Has your mare been turned out with others? Are her feet good enough to live barefoot? If you go this route, I would suggest that you be upfront and very honest about the behavioral stuff. Talk to the farrier that would do her feet. BUT have a plan B if it doesn’t work out.
- Give her to the rescue where she will get some work with rescue owner.
If choosing among these 3 I guess I would pick #2 without knowing anything re the facility or its owners.
If you want to put some $ into vet bills, I would do that first. Focus on neck/back/spine and a good neuro evaluation
The retirement farm I’m looking at is 45 min away and would be 24hr group field board. She does fine in a herd, keeps the peace and runs the show. All the other horses, even at her current barn where they are kept in separate run ins, are extremely attached to her and call for her when I take her away; meanwhile, she couldn’t care less to leave them (with the exception of my problems with her this fall, where she became uncharacteristically buddy sour). I used to do the morning feedings at the barn I was at when I first got her. I remember feeding the mares’ pasture was always absolute chaos, as they would all fight and chase each other off their food (it was particularly stressful when we had to do blanket changes at the same time). When she moved in, despite all her issues under saddle, she got the mares sorted out in short order, and feeding was so much calmer and more orderly once she was there. I think she’d be happy to be back in a herd. As for her hooves, she has tough, solid feet and has been barefoot the whole time I’ve had her. It wouldn’t be an issue for her at all.
Anyway, I also have the option to move her to another barn close to home, which certainly has its appeal… but it’s large. 35 horses. Lots of boarders and lesson kids. The trainer was really nice and understanding; she didn’t seem fazed by my descriptions of her behavior. But I’m apprehensive, because it gives me deja vu to the conversations I had with the owner/head trainer at my current farm. She was also incredibly optimistic and encouraging before I moved in, and then her tune abruptly changed once I got there. Now she doesn’t even speak to me except to send the occasional passive aggressive text message. Of course, it’s hard not to hold out hope that maybe she’s the trainer who could help us, and that maybe one more move is all it would take for things to finally click. But her husband is a friend of my husband’s, and I would hate to sour that relationship by having things go badly with her. In the future, if I engage another trainer, I would want someone I could hire to come to me, not someone affiliated with the barn. That way it’s possible to terminate the relationship with no hard feelings, and it would keep the training relationship separate from care.
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Again, you’re relying on your imagined knowledge of herd dynamics.
Your mare might not be Queen Bee in another herd.
Do you want her beat up (or worse) from challenging another Bossmare?
BTDT with my TB gelding.
King of the Hill in his turnout group of 6 other geldings for 4yrs.
Then we moved horses to a new barn & he took over the much smaller group of 3 others…
Until the former Boss came back from a vacay with owner.
For about a week my guy came in with bite marks, then accepted his place lower in the pecking order & no more injuries.
If things hadn’t settled down I’d have removed him from that group to avoid risking injury worse than he’d gotten.
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Yes, it’s true she was once turned out with an aggressive gelding who did physically harm her. Fortunately he was able to move to solo turnout, which was more appropriate for him. So, I’m not suggesting she’s immune to being bullied by an aggressive horse. My point is more that she isn’t the bully; she gets along with other horses.
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I’ve read your OP and all the responses to this point and am compelled to finally make a comment. No one here is suggesting euthanasia lightly, yet ALL have mentioned it. You are arguing for the horse’s good behavior which, based on your own posts, is less frequent than the bad behavior. The bad behavior is not a minor inconvenience, it’s dangerous. That you don’t want to accept that is a glaring beacon that says “novice horseman.” I know you have years invested in this horse, but that should tell you something too - she’s not going to ever be rideable.
It sounds to me like the horse has ECVM. She has all the symptoms. Google it. There are specific x-rays of the cervical spine that reveal it. The bottom line is that your horse has pain in her neck that hasn’t been diagnosed. She’s trying to tell everyone that in every way she can, but no one is listening. The end result is the same: euthanasia. If you love this mare, and it sounds as though you do, please put her down. That is true love, not forcing her to endure more pain because you think you can “fix” her. You can’t. At a minimum, get her x-rayed to rule out ECVM. Good luck,
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This makes me cringe. Your “feeling” that she isn’t “that bad” doesn’t matter. You are lying to yourself. Just as soon as she hurts someone else and you get sued into the poor house by them, you’ll realize that you were closing your eyes to the reality of your horse. I’m sorry to be so blunt, I do feel sorry for your predicament, but you are asking for disaster here.
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I read this article: https://www.thirzahendriks.com/post/the-un-balanced-horse. Why would you say she had “all the symptoms”? Apart from rearing as her go-to resistance behavior, she has none of these symptoms.
Until she IS 
Another “My gelding never” homily:
Herd of 2 - my TB & DH’s TWH - been coexisting for ~5yrs years.
I buy, in partnership, a young (just turned 3)OTTB. Partner & I intended getting him started & flipping.
We put him in a pasture next to my 2.
There’s some squealing from the TB, then they settled & were grazing together w/fence between.
After a couple weeks of this we decide to add the youngster to the “herd”.
I bring him in, on a lead…
TB looks up, then comes racing toward us, FullSpeedAheadDamnTheTorpedoes, neck snaked & teeth bared 
TG, he listened when I roared at him to GET! & veered off.
I got me & the youngster out of there ASAP!
TB had always - in the 10yrs I’d had him then - fit in with whatever herd he was in.
Sometimes the Benevolent Ruler (of the 6), sometimes in the middle (larger turnout group: a dozen or so).
Please don’t assume your mare will exhibit the same behavior with any & all groups.
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I just realized - we are taking the word of someone who is admittedly a beginner that her horse is sound.
I’m going to hazard a guess that the horse is not as sound as you think she is.
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Well, this seems like a scenario that any owner looking at group pasture board would have to consider. I mean, it’s completely fair to accept that no pasture dynamics are going to be the same, and to want your horse to be introduced gradually and monitored carefully at first. It’s different from knowing your horse has a consistent history of bullying and harming other horses, and to try putting that horse out with others knowing the risks. But that’s not the case for mine. And to say, oh but it might be, in the wrong herd, or the wrong place at the wrong time… well, those are risks any owner doing pasture board is taking, and most—especially those with retired horses—decide the benefits outweigh the risks. I can’t think of anyone who would say “oh my horse who has never hurt or been hurt by another horse in turnout might have it happen in the wrong circumstances, so I should really euthanize instead.”
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Spooking, bolting, bad behavior on the ground. Yes, they are. And you mention that she has one shoulder lower than the other. That’s a congenital defect. It may or may not be limiting for her, but if she has one skeletal anomaly, who’s to say she doesn’t have others that aren’t apparent to the naked eye? At least have those x rays done. The tests that the vet did to check her for back issues would not reveal ECVM.
Also, have you mentioned what breed she is? Is she a TB? Just curious.
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This is one of my gelding’s red flags when he’s done something to tweak his spine or is otherwise in pain flare. He suddenly gets very herd bound because he feels extra vulnerable.
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Yes, just sent
So if this mare gets out, gets pushed into the wrong pasture by new pasture-mates say, and has to be rounded up and caught, or gets caught in a fence, or needs an emergency trailer ride for an injury, or someone leaves a gate open, or some emergency requires that someone has to move her quickly, is that handler safe? I worked at an equine clinic once and we had a car crash through the resident stud’s fence. He was notoriously difficult to handle and we weren’t allowed to handle him (vet’s gf’s horse) and was running around like crazy as were all the other horses but there was a massive hole in the fence along the road so Someone had to catch him. I ended up being that Someone since I was the most horse savvy there at the time but it could have been a much bigger mess than it was.
Just things to think about, the world isn’t always going to conform to keep a horse happy and comfortable.
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@dogsbody1 would you mind sending me the videos as well?
I am really sorry your first horse has such a rough experience!
I own one horse who is sassy and challenging (although consistent and never tries to get me off) but enjoy riding/training so much that whenever an opportunity presents to work with another horse I jump at it. All those horses have been green with anxiety issues and some with work ethic issues, and the outcome has been different for each one. Everything is so case dependent but here are a few of my experiences.
One of these if it had been my horse, I would have put him down. He threw me right after mounting for unknown reasons so with support from my instructor, I re-started him completely. His ground manners and ground work were beautiful after many months of work and transitioned into riding. He never did this on the ground, but he would blindly panic for reasons that only made sense to him, like nobody was home and he acted like I was a cougar that had just jumped on him. Over many months of riding with ground work first, he blindly panicked three times when I was on him but able to circle sharply to get his brain back and not come off (still really scary, do not want to ride a blind panic again!), however he bronced me off off right after mounting two more times. I called it quits at that point. He was looked at by vets, nothing presented as a problem. All ground work and manners remained lovely but he was not safe to ride.
Another horse had thrown someone and broken their arm. I restarted him as well to help him learn how to deal with his anxiety safely. He turned into a lovely riding horse as long as the rider was confident and quiet and listened to him when he was having a bad day. However because I made him look so easy, a beginner began riding him and it went downhill. Nothing wrong with the rider I mean we were all beginners once, but the horse couldn’t deal with it and I refused to have all my work thrown down the toilet so I stepped away. Once a nice, quiet intermediate started being the only rider, he became lovely again.
Recently did some ground work with another horse that didn’t want to do what I asked, squealed and reared straight up as high as he could go. Hard no from me as that was obviously a practiced habit to get out of work… Again glad that wasn’t my horse because I would be faced with the hard choice of retirement or euth as that is not a problem I would be willing to pass onto anyone else…
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Ok, yes, I’d be happy to share the videos. It sounds like you have a really broad range of experience to draw from, so I would appreciate your insight. I will say the “blind panic” part does strike a chord. It’s not always that way. Mostly she just goes up very quietly and calmly to protest going forward. But I have had moments with her where it feels like she goes from 0 to 60. As long as she stays relatively straight and keeps moving forward, it’s enough to just pick up on the reins, lean back, and wait it out, because it’s pretty self limiting, and in a few seconds or strides she gets it back together. But if she drops a shoulder to duck out, or if she really catches me off guard with a stop and rear, I do come off. I will say I think a stronger rider would be able to sit it out. I don’t consider myself a very strong rider; it doesn’t take a lot of funny business for me to end up the neck and rolling to the dirt. One thing, however, about her more backwards evasions—as opposed to forward ones, like bolting and bucking—is that the falls tend to be low-speed, low impact, usually from a halt. And as a result, they aren’t as hard as falls I’ve from other horses. Plenty of times I just land on my feet, or I collapse on her shoulder and gently tumble to the ground. I find that I’m more nervous about the idea of a horse bolting and explosively bucking, than the idea of a horse like her balking and rearing me off the back. I know absolutely no one on this forum would agree with me on that front. But idk how many people on this forum have been reared with as many times as I have.
In your shoes, I would spring for a full workup including neck and spine imaging. Then at least you will have a clearer idea what you are dealing with. If something shows up, you’ve got something to base a plan on. If nothing shows up, then there’s something mental going on which may affect how you handle the situation ongoing.
I still wouldn’t be getting on this horse and I wouldn’t pass her on to anyone else either, ever.
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Please, please, please do not get back on your horse. A rearing horse is a dangerous horse. Like life ending dangerous. Its nothing to mess with. Do not minimize rearing.
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