Horse has separation anxiety

Question
We recently got a new thoroughbred mare who is 17 yrs and she immediately bonded to our 7 yr old appy.  This is great except now she will not let him out of her sight and when we stall her to ride the appy she becomes extremely agitated and kicks at her stall walls or when out in pasture will run the fence line.  Once back together all is well.  How do we correct this behavior.  We only have 2 stalls in our barn so I can't separate them and all our pastures (5 acres) are right next to each other.  I know in the past she has had several owners for various reasons.  My granddaughter is showing both horses at the fair and at some events so we need some advice.  If you saddle them at the same time and ride them at the same time there are not any problems.  We have tried stalling her while riding the appy but this results in her kicking holes in our stall walls and we are afraid of injury (stalls can be repaired).  In she is in the next pasture while riding the appy she runs the fence line constantly.  Any advice???  THANK YOU

Answer
Nancy,

This is almost impossible to totally break, it's the herd instinct and some horses are worse than others.  You can try some Bach's Rescue Remedy, available at any health food store.  Give her a dropperful in the mouth about 20 min. before you need to separate her.  Then work on "weaning" her from the other horse in stages.  Take him away for a short period of time to start, 10 min. or so and gradually increase the length of time.  If she blows through the Rescue Remedy you may want to consider tranquilizing her occasionally as needed with an oral tranquilizer.  Not my first suggestion by any means!  If you have to separate them for classes then take the other horse with her to the ring and hold him outside while she's inside the ring so she can see him.  Same thing if he's showing.  Let her accompany him and watch him in the ring.  All of us have had to deal with these issues at rides.  If I ride with another horse from my bunch and if one gets pulled or they wind up getting started at different times it makes the rest of the ride much more difficult.  The horse left behind is unhappy and the one continuing is unhappy!  Some deal better than others.  I've seen horses at camp break out of their portable pens to go with their companion.  Like I said, this is a tough issue to handle.

Try my suggestions and see if they help.  If not, get an animal communicator to talk to her and see if you can get her to work with you.  Mares are often opinionated and can be difficult.  Best of luck to you and hopefully something I have suggested will work.

Lyn