Tough but not that Tough
- August 2, 2025
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Ranch Life
Attitudes sometimes need adjusted in all species. Horses are no exception. I’d raised a mare who had many good qualities and was very people friendly. Her mother had been an outstanding using horse and
this young mare was on track to be the same. Her mother had also been the boss mare on the place. Not a bully or anything, but definitely the alpha female in the herd. Unfortunately, the daughter was definitely a bully and made life unpleasant for any horses that were new to the bunch or who just annoyed her. Her name was Elsie and she thought she was the toughest equine on the planet. She practically swaggered.
We’d bought a gelding the summer before this happened. He had been kept in the corral as we got to
know him and started using him. He was about 12 years old and this wasn’t his first new home. He had
some issues that needed worked on and was used steady. We called him Dizzy.
He’d been nose to nose over the fence with the outside horses, so they’d kind of gotten acquainted
with a plank fence between them. When the fall riding was about done, it was time to pull shoes and turn out the saddle horses for the winter. The last one turned out was Dizzy.
There was a grass trap of about five acres outside of the corrals with a long lane that went up to the
north pasture where the main bunch of horses were at. They came into the corrals daily for a drink. I
thought it would be a good idea for Dizzy to get familiar with that trap before the horses came down, so I had turned him out there. He’d checked out the trap and was picking at the grass when the other horses came down the lane. Elsie had spotted a horse out in the trap, so she was in the lead at a trot. Dizzy looked up and saw them and just stood there waiting for whatever would happen next.
When Elsie got to the grass trap she stopped and looked across the trap at Dizzy. Then, in normal Elsie fashion, she pinned her ears, snaked her neck out and built to him, ready to take him apart and show
him how tough she was. Dizzy held his ground as she barreled across the lot toward him.
I watched with trepidation as this unfolded, as I sure didn’t want Dizzy boogered up or run through the fence. He stood his ground until she reached him, mouth open to take a bite out of him, and just then, he whirled around and kicked her with both hind feet. I heard the pop as they met with her rib cage and
belly, as he’d broadsided her. That stopped her! She sagged down nearly to her knees, and her whole
appearance changed.
She backed about 40 feet with her head down, trying to catch her breath I suppose. The double barreled kick he gave her may have cracked some ribs by how she was acting. Finally, she just stood in
one place, head lowered. The wheels were turning in her head I suspect. She had finally met someone
who hadn’t been given the memo about how tough she was.
Her next approach to Dizzy was much more polite, and in a day or so, the two were grazing side by side, and were besties thereafter. Oddly enough, Elsie was no longer a bully. She became a solid lead mare, still the alpha mare but in a much more benevolent manner. Until Elsie died about 12 years later, she and Dizzy were a “couple”. The only time they were separated was when she had a foal at side.
Yep, Elsie was a tough one, but Dizzy was tougher. Sometimes that’s all a bully needs is to have their
breath knocked out of them so they can think more clearly and learn some manners. Might even work on people.
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Posted in: Featured, Horse Care, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....