Jealous Mare ?

My 6 year old mare has done things that make me think she gets jealous, especially if I am messing with another mare.

New mare arrived and my horse was tied up. I was getting the new mare off the trailer and my horse untied herself and went prancing around with an attitude of "Hey, Remember me?"

Another time, I was getting her from the pasture and she was following me, another mare came up for a quick greeting and as I reached up to rub her forehead, my mare gently put her head in my back and gently pushed me forward to a point where I could not interact with the other mare.

She does things like this from time to time and I find it amusing.

Paul

Yes, Yes, Yes.
I have 2 Arab mares. 1 is 16 and I have had her for the last 5 years. She is the horse anyone can put in the round pen for 10 minutes, establish a respect and ride off into the sunset. In April I got a 5 year old Arab mare that was on ground broke, but never ridden. She became MY horse. I broke her. I spent countless hours with her on the ground and in the saddle. I am the only one that handles and rides her, because she is a handful and very immature and needs a connection with someone. Now my older mare isn't the issue like you'd think. I just recently moved back to Ohio, from Florida, and lost all my riding buddies. So having 2 horses that are used to riding 20-30 miles I was left solo to keep both of them in shape. So I thought would ride them both in a day and just take turns, I decided to ride my older mare first.  As soon as I put her halter on and led her out of the pasture my little one went nuts. She ran the fence line, HOWLED, not whinnied, howled. SHe sounded like a growling alligator. She continued even after she couldn't see us any more. She was completely wet from sweating, Once I returned and haltered her to tack up she was ready to go and fine. Horses need a connection and relationship with the person handling them, period. I spent so much time making sure that my little one knew I was her trusting leader that it made her insecure without me or her "older sister". My older mare is so used to having so many different people handle her that she is confident in herself and others, but I have only established myself with my little one. Now, I am having a new barn mate handle her and round pen her and I have noticed that she is much better. Maybe you should try the same. Let her establish a relationship with other people so she doesn't have just you to be jealous over.
Hope this helps.

This is why I don't own mares--- too moody and possessive. LOL
 
Yes, horses can get jealous.  You might find that fussing with her for just a few minutes when you first go out will make a difference, even if you are only going to work others and not her.

My Arab mare won't let my other mare get close to me when they're loose in the field. And in fact, there for a while I had to stay with them while they ate because the Arab ate faster and then would chase Purdy off her feed, so I'd stand with Purdy and circle her to keep the Arab at bay. It was pretty funny, Ruby (the Arab) would get pissy and try to sneak around, and sulk, and Purdy figured out what I was doing and would just eat placidly away as I circle her and chased off Ruby.
 
Anyway, we don't have that problem now since I started putting rocks in the feed pans to keep Ruby from eating too fast.
 
But she does keep Purdy at bay while I'm out in the pasture. I actually rather like it, I don't like to be crowded by multiple  horses. Not that Purdy cares or has bad manners.
 
The weird thing is, the Arab that was previously sharing the pasture with a blind appy I had for a while did the same thing. He wouldn't allow the other horse to get close to me. He wasn't mean or vicious, he just kept him at bay. And I rather liked that, too, because the blind horse was..well, blind, and therefore not terribly safe to have crowding and milling around at close quarters during feeding time.
 
When I want to handle Purdy, I just pen her up, or I tie up Ruby.
 
Honestly, I don't see a possessive horse as much of a problem. Unless they're vicious or something.

Jealous, posessive, or dominant horses are okay as long as they realize that YOU are at the top of the pecking order and they respect your space while you are in their pen/pasture.  Competing horses can create dangerous situations.