Behavourial quirks
Grooming partners • Spooking out hacking
QMy mare is so choosy about affection. Sometimes she enjoys a head scratch and being pampered, especially if she is coming into season, but the rest of the time she moves away from being stroked or patted. I more or less have to chase her around the stable for a cuddle! Does she hate me?
Debbie Fowler, Lancashire
Jenni says... “Choosy” is a great choice of word, and you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Horses, particularly mares, usually have only one or two grooming partners within their social group. A grooming session is by mutual consensus. One or both make an approach, may pause, give a test scratch, and, if acceptable to both parties, a scratching session will follow until one or both have had enough; they will then stop grooming and walk away. Any scratching that was too much might even result in one threatening the other before they walk away.
Feels so good… or does it?
Touch from a trusted companion, when the horse is feeling relaxed and sociable, triggers slow-acting nerve fibres within the skin that are specific to that friendly, tactile communication. Other nerve endings are fast-responding fibres, adapted to detecting harmful stimuli.
Unwanted touch often triggers these nerves, which the horse finds unpleasant or even painful, and so they move away, or even threaten aggressive behaviour.
It’s most likely that your actions to pet your mare come at the wrong time for her, and it’s this she doesn’t like rather than you personally.