I absolutely believe they can sense both weakness and unstable energy. Dogs do this all the time - the over excited gets targeted, as does the excessively submissive.
That said, the poor old grey girl can’t help it. You’re on the right track keeping this bully away from her.
If a horse is over the top aggressive, all other horses in the same place, even if they are not in the same herd, will be stressed, knowing there is such an ogre around there.
Is like living with a very abusive person.
Perhaps you may not be the direct target, but it keeps everyone worried about what next.
In many situations, public/training barns, you can’t help it.
Such bullies don’t have a place in many smaller or private barns where you want peace for all.
We didn’t keep that super aggressive, scary gelding around, found him a place where he had to behave.
Thankfully once separated he’s been good. And the bottom gelding actually likes hanging with him (across the fenceline). It was really only her that he, for whatever reason, wanted to kill.
I’ve been told the aggressive horse senses the weak link, and will go after that one to keep the herd strong. Folklore? I dunno.
I think so in most cases.
I had a mare here attacked by a gelding. He was out to kill her. Chasing her and chasing her with his head down and ears laid back, we could not get in between them. He was ripping chunks of skin off of her back. She finally tried to jump out of the field and crashed. He jumped on her with his knees on her neck and was going to rip her throat out. We were able to get him off of her.
Oh, and that mare was sold and came back ten years later. That gelding remembered her and still wanted to kill her. He was never allowed near her again.
The same mare had been out with two mares after that incident. One day, after a couple of years together, the two mares went after her to kill her. It was a bigger field, and we needed the quad to get them off of her. Incredibly scary. She ended up out with a mini. 
She was the kindest mare ever. And the total bottom of the pecking order. A chestnut.
I’ve had 3 very aggressive horses in my lifetime. One was gelded late at 8 years, another a stallion who was aggressive even for a stallion, and another a gelding who was gelded early but had limited socialization as a youngster due to being at a training barn with no turn out. They were all healthy and their dominance and aggression was extremely high consistently through out ownership. Some horses are land sharks and it just does not go away. The best thing to do IMO is separate them and turn them out with horses they get along with. For example, the late cut gelding would get very attached to mares so he went out with geldings. His aggression would be triggered by challenging geldings over mares. The other gelding is fantastic with mares but not geldings. The stallion was, of course, managed very differently but probably not applicable with your gelding. They can be managed but carefully. I would see if your gelding maybe does better with more dominant horses. I’d steer away from pairing him with very submissive horses. I also steer clear of small pastures so bullied horses can get away if there is a wide variance in dominance. I’ve also just pastured the problem horse separately in a smaller paddock where they can still see their buddies and they have done completely fine that way if I didn’t have an appropriate match.
We had an off-color appaloosa some years ago, mostly gray with some mottling. She was the low horse in the herd and and the herd boss was always going after her to the point we had to turn her out separately. DH did some research and found that horses of this coloration or grays are typically cast out from the herd because they are a lighter color and would draw attention from predators.
My horse was grabbed by the withers once, many years ago. I didn’t see it happen but the crescent teeth marks one either side of his withers was unmistakable. I always assumed the other horse had knocked mine down as the bruising was so bad the tooth gashes had healed and the hair had grown back well before the tenderness went away.
At a different barn one gelding attacked another and managed to tear holes all over the horse’s hide, knock the horse down, kneel on him and start tearing a hole in the horse’s flank before the BO could run him off. They’d been part of the same five horse group for months at that point. Both horses were boarders.
The injured horse was removed from the group until I pointed out that as the BO now knew that horse had a very aggressive tendency, should that horse attack another horse again the BO would bear full responsibility for the victim’s injuries, vet costs, etc. That wasn’t a risk the BO was willing to take and the aggressor was separated and the owner told to find another place as they weren’t set up to keep a horse on individual turnout long term.
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