I’ve owned my 26-year-old mare since she was two and have never known her to be particularly attached or particularly aggressive with any other horses. She has been in a fairly stable herd situation for the last 15 years where she is turned out with other horses during the day and goes home to a stall with a run-out at night. She has been living with/turned out with one mare and two geldings for a number of years with the arrivals, deaths, and departures of a few geldings being the only change to her “herd.”
Cut to today. A new gelding has arrived on the property. Supervised introductions between the current horses and the new gelding had been taking place (separated by a fence, horses on leads, etc) with no unexpected behaviors from any of the other horses. And then my mare… my mellow, arthritic, 26-year-old mare… has gone full-on horndog. She’s desperate to be near this horse, peeing all over the place, winking, nickering and whinnying from her stall just looking at him across the aisle. When I took her away from him, she turned into a 1,000lb kite and began bucking and rearing and getting all the other horses on the property worked up. Her attachment to this gelding seems instantaneous and severe and I am nervous about having these two horses coexisting in the turnout, especially with the other three horses around. This is so out of character for my mare, who has been in a drill team with stallions without issue. It’s only day one, but I’m very concerned about the ability to safely integrate this new gelding into the mix with my mare being… dangerously skanky? Skankily dangerous? Help!
