13 yr gelding quarter horse

Question
I have owned teddy for seven months total different than thoroughbred  i own. He is alpha and stubborn but I work with him. recently for 2 months I have been supplementing hay in the paddock as I needed to move horses to different. stable with no pasture.My two horses paddock together. Teddy does,doesn't like to share. so i give him his two laps and then I give kisses her's about 60 ft away. This one day I did not look back to check on teds position because he seems like for a month now he could care less. Well teddy knew I was not paying attention and before I knew it he was on Kisses (thoroughbred) she of course being the none alpha quickly ran away but ted spun in a second and kicked at me with both legs missed my face but broke my hand a bruised my chest. I did not flinch even though my hand was on fire and I heard a big thump on my chest. I quickly grabbed a fallen limp and chased teddy away to his side of the pasture. I can tell you it was a stare down but he finally decided to retreat. Ted gets regular lunging by a trainer and myself and he is not allowed to have fresh ground manners. I have since asked my trainer to rate teddy on a scale of 1 to 10 for naughty horse. she rates him a 4. my question is this. do you think ted will think he can kick me again? I know I will not physically feed in the field again while horses are in the field. I will drop hay over the fence or place in field when they are not there. but i am curious as to why after all this time does ted think he can be alpha over me or was this just a one time food issue,. Ted is very manageable on cross ties hoof care etc. and is very well neck reined in riding. it was the stare down thing that showed me ted had to think it over if he was going to retreat or continue his aggressive behavior. also, for the rest of the day it was business as usual some work some grooming and some TLC and ted was especially cooperative and quiet. then I went home to lick my wounds.

Answer
Hi Shelley!

The incident you have described is a common occurrence with horses.  Feed time can turn into a barroom brawl...why in your case with Teddy?

Could be he saw you were unaware and he took a cheap shot.  While 7 months is a long time to own a horse for most humans involved...it's not long enough to a horse that herd authority stops being challenged.  The first few seconds of horses coming together always sort out immediate hierarchy. But, there are months of scuffles to follow to re-establish or challenge leadership.

A human cannot referee the fights between horses.  Nature must rule there and humans step in to separate only if a horse is in danger.

However, when a horse turns herd aggression to a human, then you must act and act swiftly.  Standing up to him and the stare off was more of a human action than an equine one.  Horses do not have stare-downs.  They have a sniff, scuffle, kick and whinny to establish dominance.  Oh, they may tolerate a few "Hey!  You're too close!!" indiscretions with nothing more than pinned ears and bared teeth but, eventually the more dominant one lashes out to show it.

So, your Teddy may have "warned" you several times to stay away from his food in his equine way of communicating and you just didn't see it.  So, it was a natural progression on his part to kick out to protect his food from an obviously ignorant intruder.  To teach you.  And it certainly did, eh?  In the future you may want to be watching his body language a little more closely.  He is always talking to you, you just have to pick up on it.

My advice is to continue longeing him but, use that time to correctly establish your dominance through specific exercises (available online or in books).  I also like Monty Roberts Join-Up method.  Maintain dominance in all manners of ground work and this will all transfer to when he is under saddle too.  You now recognize he is a horse bound and determined to be Alpha.  Well, he can with other horses.  Not you, though.

I tell all my clients it can take 12-18 months to establish a trusting relationship with a new horse.  And then years to form a true bond that could be called "love".  It can be a bumpy road but, the horse usually shows you the way!  LOL!!

Good luck and remember to always wear an ASTM/SEI approved helmet!

Solange