I’ve known two horses like this, and they were half-siblings. One was much more of an “attacker” than the other, but both had some screws loose. One of them was my best friend’s horse, and she had him from the time he was a weanling (actually, even before he was weaned). He was a bit of a pill even as a baby, and my friend is kind of a no-nonsense disciplinarian when it comes to horses. Over the years, I watched this horse come at her with ears pinned and mouth open, and he always got a “Come to Jesus” session for it. He’d behave for the most part, but if he felt pressured or threatened, he’d get nasty. And I love her, but my friend tended to pick at the horse a lot, nag him a lot, correct every little thing he did…if he put a whisker wrong, he was getting a stern correction…so I think he often felt like he needed to defend himself. He already wasn’t exactly a “pocket pony” by any means, and her rather strict way of dealing with him didn’t help. He also had some pain issues that made him cranky, but all he ever got when he’d show his crankiness was more stern corrections and punishment. Eventually, he didn’t have much use for people because they made him miserable.
One day in the stall at a show, my friend was “loving on him” (he was annoyed by it and she thought it was funny). She couldn’t see his face because of the way she was standing with her arms around his neck. She kept poking him and he kept pinning his ears, and I has just gotten the words, “You better watch him,” out of my mouth when he went full-on savage and grabbed her by the shoulder and literally threw her across the stall and onto the ground. He then wheeled and had his hind feet lined up ready to kick her when I intervened with a pitchfork and stopped him from probably killing my friend. That was easily over a decade ago and she still has the scar he left on her shoulder. She wound up selling him with full disclosure about his behavior quirks, and of course, the buyers (like we all do) figured it wouldn’t happen with them. One day the new owner was riding him. She stopped and had a friend adjust something on his bridle for her. The horse kind of made a snarky face at the friend and she instinctively popped him on the nose and told him to quit. He attacked her, with his owner on his back trying to pull him away with no luck. Took the woman he attacked to the ground and was mauling her, ignoring his owner/rider completely.
Went and saw this horse’s half-brother (same dam, sweet mare) when he was a weanling and he came over to the fence to say “hi” and after standing there pleasantly with his ears up for a minute, for no apparent reason, rushed at the fence and lunged at us with ears pinned and mouth wide open. I saw that same horse try to throw himself over the top of a stall front that was at least 8 feet high. I also heard stories about him once he was under saddle. They said he’d be trotting along fine with other horses in the ring and then would suddenly slam on brakes and start running backwards trying to kick anyone around him.
All of this to say…some of them are just special. And there was no amount of punishing or discipline that was going to change those horses. I think something like clicker training would have been much more beneficial. They were already pretty sure humans were wretched, no need to prove them right.
