My pony is protective of his food source. When I go out in the pasture to get him, he circles around me making sure no other horse gets near me. He will do this to others who he knows will give him treats.
He also likes the littles- put a tiny tot on him and goes as slow as he can possibly go and overall behaves himself better and if feet come out of the stirrups he comes to a stop- and maybe use the opportunity to graze.
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My old Arabian mare (she’s gone now) would get between me and my gelding when he was feeling sassy. He would run up close and buck and kick. She would keep him from getting close but ONLY did this when he was acting sassy.
Fast forward several years, I have a younger half Arabian mare. When my old girl started having trouble with arthritis, I watched the younger mare protect the old girl from the same sassy gelding when he was being sassy. As long as he was behaving and being calm, younger mare didn’t care if he was next to old girl.
Maybe it’s an Arabian thing or a mare thing. The gelding would throw me to the wolves and would probably break my leg just to make sure he had a better chance of getting away. I love him but won’t even pretend he would try to save me.
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Not a protection story but want to share with folks who will “get it”. My gelding is just starting a rest/rehab stint, so is in individual turn out. The last two times i went to see him, the look he gave me in the paddock was an “oh hai, are we going to do something fun together today?” And came right to the gate away from his food. Just like when i started him as a 5 year old. Warms my heart! Of course when we are back to the under tack part of rehab, he will be…a bit wild.
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My first horse would buck me off about every other day but after he did, he would stop, stand quietly with his head lowered beside me and wait for me to get up. Does that count? 
I have a QH that absolutely glares at all the other horses with his ears slightly pinned when I’m around and other horses are near by. He’s already thinking about me feeding him and anyone getting an eyeball on his feed. Don’t mess with my feed or the human that feeds me is his attitude. He’s such an arse to other horses.
I have ridden a lot of bold and confident stallions under saddle that I felt taken care of but they would also not hesitate to create a bit of chaos under the right conditions.
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This isn’t exactly like your experience, but I have long sensed that my horse tries to “protect” me when I’m on his back. I know this sounds SO corny, but he and I have a special relationship. He is a younger horse, and still on the green side, but he seems to know when his old, creaky ammy mom is in the irons and is especially quiet and forgiving with me. Thank God, right?
I am no animal communicator, but I just get this sense that he thinks keeping me safe is his job.
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DL, there is a good chance it is real. Google “limbic resonance”. They certainly can sense our emotions, and it seems quite likely that we can sense theirs if we take the trouble to notice.
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Not a horse, but my 
kitty and I spent two years together before I married Mr.BatCoach. After we were married, artie (cat) took some time to warm up sharing me with a human man.
The first few months of living together were Interesting. For the first time ever Artie was very territorial. He peed on the Mr.’s jeans and even bit him in the bum during a very…ummm let’s just call it an intimate moment lol. This was a kitty who was sweet loving and gentle, but clearly felt defensive towards me.
It was very obvious when Mr. BatCoach and I were watching a baseball game on the couch. Mr. BatCoach, while being a kind and laid back guy, is a big sports guy and cheers and makes a ruckus over a score or good play. It’s the most animated he ever gets. So one day early in our marriage we were watching a baseball game and Mr. Batcoach jumped up from the couch and whooped and tried to high-five me and low and behold artie comes streaking in from the other room and places himself between me and Mr.B hissing, howling and back -arched.
Artie must have thought that Mr.B was yelling at me and the high-5 was him trying the strike me. We calmed him down and assured him that no violence was intended, but it was then that I realized cat would put himself in between me and perceived threats.
Artie and Mr. b went on to become great friends and the territorialness faded. I can’t count how many time artie would fall asleep in the crook of Mr.Bs arm as they reclined together on the couch. Artie was always a mamas boy, but he approved of and loved Mr.b in time. We both wept when we had to put him down many many years later.
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I have an alpha mare that absolutely does that. If I am standing in the turnout with her and the others, she will shoo them away from me and put herself between me and them. When I used to take her to races, while I was sitting in a chair watching with her on a lead rope, she would glare and lunge at passers by and put herself between that horse and me. If I had her tied to the trailer and I was sitting on a running board, several times, she swung around and tried to pee on me!
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This is my mare 100000%. If something spooks her, you can just drop the reins and let her sort it out because without fail, she will march right up to it to investigate. She has never lost a rider, and the few times that I or my mother has gotten a little unseated, she will freeze until you get sorted out. She absolutely does not want to lose her rider.
So much so that, when I started her in the round pen, one day there was a farmer next door who was using his tractor. My mare would speed up to be able to see what he was doing, and then when she would get to that side, she would slow down so she had more time to look, and then speed up again to get to the interesting stuff lol.
Not surprising, this mare has NEVER refused a jump and she is THE horse to be on on a trail.
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I was lunging my mare, and our arena only has half the sideboards of a normal dressage court, so you can go in and out. I was moving her in overlapping circles, on straight lines, diamond shapes, not the normal “stand and twirl” lunging. I wasn’t paying attention, and tripped over the sideboard. Fell flat on my face.
Maresy was mildly perturbed by that, but slowed to a walk. I scrambled back up, and then she proceeded to do the mama-horse head-shake prancing herding thing that they all do when they are moving junior somewhere else. She wanted me OUT of that area where I fell and somewhere much safer for a clumsy biped, thank you very much. Once we moved to the open grass corner, she stopped trying to herd me and settled back into work.
Don’t know if that counts as protection, but I guess she figured she had to help this stupid biped survive walking on flat ground till dinner time.
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On the flip side of all this…
Did any of ya’ll get chased as a child because you were tiny 45 lb 8 year old and messing with the horses without supervision?
My cousin and I were out in the horse pasture one day and my uncle’s bay 3 year old quarter horse MARE chased me in laps around the horse drawn manure spreader that was parked in the pasture until I rolled out under the single line of hot wire electric fence.
My cousin was laughing her butt off at me.
I thought horses were magical and supposed to automatically like you 
. A couple more times like that and my mom got me lessons…
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I used to ride with a lady who had that horse; a big, thick, white (grey?) mare. She was an absolute tank on the trail; nothing dared to stand in her way.
George is good; he will find a way around; that girl went over/thru. Crunch, snap, break. Awe inspiring.
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My Arab mare once leaped in front of me and turned her body sideways to take the impact from the wall of snow sliding toward us off the 180-ft indoor roof. I appreciated the thought, though the avalanche was 30 or 40 feet away, which my mare realized with embarrassment once it was over and quickly walked away, studiously ignoring me.
My Morgan gelding would have wanted you all to know that he was extremely protective and feared nothing and was on top of every situation and was the epitome of courage. It’s not true, as he actually was always looking for Mommy to protect him, but he would have wanted everyone to think that he was very manly.
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My mare? Yes, very protective. Which also means that sometimes she thinks I am really stupid to ask her to do things. I always have to stop myself and ask whether she is right. Sometimes she is.
The fact that she’s sensitive and a little spooky, and I am a timid rider, yet I fell off of her ONCE in ~13 years of riding, should say a lot about her ability to keep herself underneath me. I just wish I’d figured it out sooner. (And my fall really blew her confidence for a while, even though it was not HER fault she backed into a cattle-strength electric fence. I was not supposed to be on the ground because of her actions. Period. She did not run off BTW.)
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Not really. I suspect what he is thinking is that if Bob the Cat is on sentry duty that ought to be good enough for me.
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Protect is an interesting word. One of mine definitely clues into my intention and has chased off another horse when I was trying to get that horse to stop dipping his feet into the water trough. He came from across the pasture to do it, definitely seemed intentional.
This same horse is difficult for others to ride, but very good for me. I have some physical infirmities right now and he is so careful leaving the mounting block and waiting for me to limber up. He’s dumped a few other people pretty intentionally, but he is very tolerant of mistakes when I ride him. I will say that I think it’s trust built over time, I’ve had him since he was 5 and he turns 11 this year.
However, he also is a nipper, and more than once we’ve had to have a very stern conversation about keeping one’s teeth to one’s self.
My saddlebreds are like @clanter’s Morgans. They have to be involved…in everything. I can’t do anything in the barnyard alone. No one can. They MUST be involved.
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I have a good friend whose horse is one of those that is quick off the mounting block. Very quick LOL. My friend was laid up with a knee issue for a bit, and his horse stood like a statue for him at the block until he was feeling better…then was back to his usual business as soon as my friends knee was feeling better. It was fascinating to witness!
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My horse slipped on a rock and fell in a creek and was submerged totally. He came up, freaked out, started bucking, and tore off into the woods where he was lost for 24 hours until a search party found him. So no. Then there was that time an aggressive weed waived and he dumped me.
So no.
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I watched someone riding a little cutting horse along the road.
A very tall sunflower waved at him as he walked by.
Surprised he took a huge jump to the other side of the road, 16’ we measured later, and was oh so kind to take his elderly rider along, not dump in the middle of the road.
Some horses are saints. 
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I went out and cut the stupid weed down later that day!
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