…than other people’s horses? Has anyone else noticed this? Bitsey smells perfect to me, especially after grooming. I love other horses, but they don’t smell as good to me as she does. There’s got to be some sort of bonding thing or smell recognition going on. Or, is Bitsey exerting some sort of mind control?
What do you think? And, do mares smell different than geldings? I think so, but I don’t know for sure. I loved our old gelding and he also smelled good, but it was a different smell.
Interesting topic!
My mares have always smelled particularly good to me - mother and daughter. My older mare smells like baby powder and grass – and since she’s retired and hanging out on field board, she hasn’t had a bath in quite some time – but still smells good! Her daughter has that smell as well, but it’s fainter.
My daughter has noticed it too, and she is not a horse person (so has no basis for comparison really.)
I think all horses smell good – though I’ve heard that some grey horses have a funky smell; I haven’t experienced this personally, but only owned one grey and that was over 50 years ago.
Our stallion has a stronger smell than the mares and geldings. All are fed the same, no special supplements for him. He is new here, purchased in March. Husband noticed his stronger smell immediately, but we thought perhaps it was his diet from previous owner. Nope. He still has a smell to him that the others lack. We now believe it is hormones from being entire.
Stallions in the wild do mark their territories, so having a stronger odor could help warn off other stallions travelling across his ground. Our stallion does make the poop piles in corners of his present fields every day. Also a territory marker to other horses.
The rest of our horses seem to just smell like horses to me. A good smell, but not an individual smell. However I am known to be rather oblivious to many smells others notice, so I consider my nose to be rather dull. Good thing I am not in the wine or perfume business! Ha ha
All three of mine smell different. My two minis are the same size and wear the same color/style sheets and blankets and if I get the blankets mixed up, all I have to do is take a sniff of the blanket and I know who it belongs to. They are all geldings and all were gelded late (7-10). Their diet is the same.
Horses that are not fit, to my nose, absolutely reek. And yes, different horses smell different. Some may have health issues that cause them to smell whether it’s the smell coming directly from them, or whether they marinate themselves in their manure and urine that smells different due to health issues.
Many grey horses are known to smell more acrid than others, not all but many.
Their western blankets are stinkier than most, we leave them outside the tack room to air out.
Our stallions didn’t smell any more or less than other horses and most did have their own smell, you could tell who’s blanket was each horse’s by the smell when fairly fresh.
My four geldings all smell about the same --lovely, grassy scent! However, I once hauled an Appy gelding who smelled bad (to me). I could smell him even after I unloaded him. He eventually hurt his owner (bucking, spinning) and she placed him with a teenager --guess they got on ok. I always wondered if he was a ridgling gelding —
When I bought the horse in my avatar he had been gelded only a couple of weeks (to make importation from Europe easy). He reeked. Not sure if it was hormones or maybe not being groomed in quarantine. Bad odor vanished pretty soon.
All of mine have smelled different as well (our cats have all had their own unique smells too). Some horses do smell “sweeter”, more like horse + fresh cut hay. Some smell horse + clean dirt. It’s really fascinating.
And yes, if a horse smells bad, something’s wrong. PPID and uncontrolled EMS can cause bad BO, for example
That’s true, when our pony had Cushings, she did smell differently. More tangy. Maybe because her sweat patterns changed due to hormones and a heavier coat?
My horse as a kid was a nervous sweater, she would have neck sweat ten minutes into a ride just walking and we worked up a sweat galloping a lot. She lived in a very clean stall. She was a mostly white pinto and I did wash her a bit. She always had a slightly acrid sweat smell, rather than a horsey smell. She adored being brushed and scratched.
My current mare lives in a runout stall and is quite clever about pooping and peeing outside and sleeping on shavings in her very clean stall. She’s a Paint with good markings but probably 75% chestnut. I rinse her off in summer, she has a very shiny coat that repels a lot of staining even on her white spots. She doesn’t sweat a lot unless it’s hot out and we’re moving fast or long distances. I feel like she has a very mild dry horse odor, often very little if it’s summer and lots of hosing off. She prefers that to being brushed!
Both horses were very healthy, not prone to skin funk, and shiny.
I feel like horses on field board smell good, they roll in the grass and get rained on and never sleep in their own poop. When I notice a horse with a stronger odor I tend to associate it with hygiene, sleeping in a dirty stall or with dirty blankets. I haven’t been around enough horses with health conditions to see if they inherently smell different. I do think hygiene is a bit different from inherent odor.
I will say that fresh manure can smell very different between different horses, some are very sulphuric, some are fetid, smell it right down the aisle, but I don’t know enough about everyone’s feeding, supplements or health and gut issues to know why.
Mare smells really good. One gelding needs sheath and hind leg cleaning almost every day to remove smelly almost tar-like deposits. My other geldings did not have this odor. Vet has looked and just says to keep washing off deposits every day. Not a problem except the time spent every day. He seems to love having his boy parts cleaned.
I think your horse is a perv. 
My horses always had a faint odor of skunk. They never got sprayed directly, but the skunks lived in the hay storage and there was always some smell on the air. It didn’t seem to bother the horses, and I didn’t mind it because it wasn’t intense.
My dog, however, got sprayed frequently because she just would not learn not to chase skunks. That was awful. She’d get upset and run in the house, and stink everything up. We found out L’Oreal kids’ shampoo would get skunk odor out of her coat. It also got rid of the odor on the horses.
Rebecca
I remember a training horse that had just come in that had a pong to him, his sweat was gummy too. After about two months I noticed that his sweat was ‘clear’ and he smelled good. I’m guessing either he did have a health issue that cleared on it’s own, or, more likely, the feed, training, and turn out at the barn opened up his system. I was grooming and warming up for the trainer and that horse made washing his saddle pad a pain. Sticky & stinky.
My horse stinks 
…no getting around it. She has made a wallow in her pen and then she insists peeing in the same place she lays. I have to come home and change clothes. She has a nice run out but yes, insists on peeing and laying in the same place. Ugh.
What a stinkbug!
I have noticed that horses vary in smell. The mare I am currently trial leasing smells particularly good. I hope it is a good sign that she will work out and be the perfect horse for me buy in the future! She is the horse in my avatar.
My horse is retired on full pasture board and he smells different now than he did when he was in work and living out at my house. I think it’s partly that he’s fat and out of shape (not that fat) and also different/little/less hay and fewer baths. He used to smell sweet and “horsey”, now he smells horsey and a little pungent, for lack of a better word. He still smells good to me, but very different. I’ve owned him for 11 years.
I think different colored horses smell differently. My previous grey and current paint pony have a sweeter smell to them. My last horse, a dark bay, was a bit spicy.
In Chinese medicine, the different elements are associated with different odors. My Fire Arab was spicy/smokey.
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