vicious horses

N

neddy1

Member
Joined
9 June 2009
Messages
24
Visit site
i am currently writing a short story with a horse theme , the main character is a mean tempered horse ! the question is how vicious can i make him ? i not just talking grumpy faces and waving a leg around ,i want him to be dangerous to handle ! r there really any horses that people work with on a daily basis that are really vicious ?
 
I once met a horse that a truly believe was capable of terrible things, never saw him do anything but he would stand and look at you in the field and there was such a look in his eye, he was big and he knew it, he ran rings round his owners and I would never get too close to him - nasty animal
 
i do actually think there are some horses out there wno are born mean and are very aggressive and nasty but i think most of us are lucky enough not to meet them !
 
My horse is vicious. LOL. God love him. Or at least he can be with strangers and sometimes with me if I'm stupid enough not to read him.

He will often half attempt to come over the door at me, he goes for me every day, he will kick out happilly and lash out with front feet etc. But he - like it says above, is a victim of mistreatment.
 
I used to know a horse called Silver - white welshie i think - he was so mean, he used to squish the chicks by stamping on them - he attacked and killed a goose by trampling it, he kicked a dog and it had to be destroyed and he had a weird trick of being able to wiggle his ears so the bridle would come off between his legs and then would he bronk ! - broke many a nose.

In the stable, he would wait for you to be alongside him and then he would put ALL his weight on you - he broke the farmers ribs. When you were putting his saddle on you would have to do it with a whip in one hand - else you would get bitten really really hard and he would always try and kick you.

Dont know what happend to him - but he sure as well made me light footed round horses
 
I knew a pony that was PTS due to its aggression, but it came from being in pain for a long time and associated being touched with horrific pain, so lashed out rather than letting you touch her.
 
[ QUOTE ]
i do actually think there are some horses out there wno are born mean and are very aggressive and nasty but i think most of us are lucky enough not to meet them !

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think animals are born evil. But then controversially I don't think people, or rather children are either!
It's all about their start in life and if it's not abuse, it's the fact they have been spoilt and not disciplined.

Good luck on the novel, look forward to hearing more x
 
Horses are prey animals.. it means they are programmed to run away! not stand up to someone.. unless there in a confined space.. then they have no choice but to defend themselves and fight.

Lou x
 
Knew 1 similar. Great big bay gelding that would go for you in the stable and also target you if you went into the field, chase you from behind and bite your behind. He was fine to ride and once he accepted you he was great. I suppose it was like defensive aggression in dogs - he didn't trust easily, so it could have been the result of unknown previous abuse.
 
I have a small section A who is super aggressive. She has serious trust issues, and will strike out at you with either front feet or back, though she wont turn her back on you if she can help it (she likes to keep you in her view at all times).
Man made her this way, not nature, and on one occasion when she was sedated, we found she bears the scars of human inflicted abuse.
She will also bite and run you down if you dont heed the warnings given.
 
Lucy was very vicious when i get her (if i haddn't have had her she was going for meat!
frown.gif
) She spent 6 months in the field because you coudn't go in with her if you did she would come at you baring her teeth then she would spin round right in front of you and throw both her back legs at you. This was because she had been very badly treated in her first two homes. Even when i gaind her trust to let me catch her and then to let me ride her she had me off atleast once a day (inclu a very impressive rodeo show and even rearing up and coming over backward when i lurned to sit her bucks) for about a year. She came good in the end but it took alot of work, pain and tears.
I have also known horses who have had a good upbringing be vicious not as bad as Lucy but still try to hurt people on purpose just because they can.
 
thank you for all your replies , all very helpful . i thought the horse could have been born nasty but maybe to be more realistic he needs to have been mistreated at some point ,maybe as a foal .
 
I have known just two 'vicious' horses, both bright chestnut geldings. One would go for you in the field and chase you backwards, kicking you. He would also corner you in the stable and threaten to kick. The other would also do the stable thing and killed a lamb. Unfortunately I don't know the background, but I did notice that the former horse had a really odd, disturbed look in his eye which troubled me..
 
A dificult question to answer. There are horses that ,for example ,might have a brain tumour,and be Dangerous and completely unpredictable.But generally these are diagnosed and PTS, so I suppose they are not truely handled on a day to day basis. Amongst horses without an underlying medical condition,I would say yes there are dangerous horses,but predictably dangerous.My horse Lancelot was one. Most people knew him as the immaculately behaved hunter. Butter wouldnt melt in his mouth. Howevr at home ,in his stable it was another matter altogether. I have had the jacket sleeve torn off my arm for daring to top up his waterbucket. He was facing away ,yet spun round and charged so fast,I didnt even have time to react.(he was 17.3HH and increddibly powerfull.It was totally unsafe to put hay in his stable unless he was tied up. Grooming was a delicate art. He wouldnt be constantly trying to attack, but if somthing annoyed him ,he would completely flip.I am not one who would normally put up with this,and until I met lance ,would have been of the"dont let him get away with that"show him hose boss"school.he is the first horse I have met for whom this completely didnt work. However ,I did gradually realise that his violence was predictable. Even kicking. I couldt ever trust him in the stable,not to kick me( he never did) because if I misjudged him once, I wouldnt live to tell the tale.He was good at just missing,with full power kicks,yet they always missed by an inch or two. It was definately a warning rather than the direct intention to hurt. I think his own aggression scared him ,but wheras most horses would bite and run away scared,knowing they had done wrong. Lance would do the opposite and come back even angrier.You learn to read all the signs with a horse like this.Once I realised that it was not just a case of showing him who was boss,and recognised how dangerous he could be,the trick was to learn how to manage him. A very kind and patient groom taught him to step back from the door at feeding time. His reward was to be given his food and completely ignored.Getting a headcollar on him was a bit fraught,because he would turn his back to you.We compromised on this show of bad manners. he could face away providing he didnt point his quaters at me. Gently pushed over witha lunge whip if necessary,He would then"mouth" which is a sign of submission.After this I could go up to him . I tried never to approach him with the saddle,I made sure it was there before I took him out of the stable,because approaching him with it was guarantied to provoke him to violence.yet once tacked up and walking away,it was like a switch being turned on,and you could see him change ito this incredibly kind and willing horse.I had him two years and thought we were really making headway with his issues. I lost him out hunting 3 months ago and am still devastated by it. I dont think it is just a case of coping with a violent horse, I really miss lances bloodyminded argumentative bickering .
 
I groomed for a horse out in NZ, a lovely 17hh TB, built like a warmblood, owned in part by Mark Todd and part by the girl I worked for. The first thing I was told about him was that he had bitten his last groom so hard on the arm that he had broken the bone, and had then proceeded to drag her around the field by her broken arm. He really was a vicious horse, but again, I believe made that way by man.

He was fiercely intelligent and you had to learn to respect that. You had to read him closely and treat him with respect. If he misbehaved he accepted being disciplined, once. But for anyone who overstepped that mark and felt the need to smack or growl at him a second time, that was it, he would defend himself to the end and the human would most definitely lose.

He was the same to ride, treat him with sensitivity and he was an incredible horse (well beyond my abilities, he merely tolerated me as his exercise rider because I did nothing to offend him), but ask a question he thought was unreasonable and you would find yourself on a very dangerous horse. I learned not to push his boundaries, to respect his personal space and he kept out of mine, and I loved him to pieces. He should have come over here to event but fractured his stifle, devastating as I could have seen him winning Badminton.

Funny, all the most vicious horses I have groomed for have been the most talented. Perhaps their aggressive edge translated to their attitudes towards work. They weren't easy, but they were definitely worth it...and for some reason in each of my grooms jobs it was the vicious or bad tempered ones that I bonded most closely with.
 
My boy is truely aggressive and although he has improved lots since i have had him he would still have you in the blink of an eye. He has caused some quite severe injuries to people. As someone mentioned above he is incredibly intelligent and talented but needs to be handled very, very carefully.

You need to be firm but fair with him, try and overstep the mark with discipline and he'll come straight back at you and he means it with teeth, hooves and crushing.

I love him fiercely though and he is the most wonderful horse to ride. I'm not sure what happened in his racing career to make him like this but something obviously left some huge scars mentally.

He has a home for life with me though and although I know I'll never be able to trust him I do believe with each day that goes by he gets to know me a little better and a bond is building.
 
Katpt and Wimbles,I can see so much of my boy in your descriptions of yours. Particularly the inteligence and reaction to discipline. From your descriptions ,i am sure you will recognise this... Lance severely disapproved of me getting on from the normal side and wouuld casually turn around just as I went to put my foot in the stirrup. Any attempt at discipline would merely result in him standing closer and more squarely the wrong way round so close in fact that it was impossible to get on. Any use of force merely led to a brawl. The solution was to play the game(i am sure it was a game to him,not ignorance)a few times ,and then get the stick and beat....the saddle...he would then stand immaculately,entirely happy ,knowing that his enemy the saddle had taken the blame.(god he hated saddles, his being taylor made and fitting him perfectly.)
 
Sometimes Tiger will let me get on normally and other times he will not stand for me getting on the correct side. The funny thing is he doesn't give a damn if I get on from the wrong as he thinks he has won. He does take strong dislikes to some people though and will lash out with very well aimed kicks and incoming teeth when they come to get on.

With him there is no point in having endless battles, such as changing his rugs every night. He hates this so we only do it when we really need to.
 
Oh so familiar, rugs were always an issue,..except for his flyrug and face mask. Right from the moment i first showed them to him he was in love.It cant have been just that they were keeping the flys off, because it was completely from the first moment. I could almost believe he understood everyone saying how smart it was. But any other rug would get thrown on the floor and trampled.
confused.gif
confused.gif
confused.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
thank you for all your replies , all very helpful . i thought the horse could have been born nasty but maybe to be more realistic he needs to have been mistreated at some point ,maybe as a foal .

[/ QUOTE ]

Horses aren't born nasty - but some inherit temperament traits that make them more likely to turn nasty if they're not handled right - or if they're abused. There was a TB stallion in Australia many years ago who was nasty, and even his two year olds - brought up on a variety of stud farms - had the reputation of being 'difficult' at best.

I have only known one truly vicious horse in a long lifetime with horses - he was another old (17 when I knew him) TB stallion who HAD been abused - I found scars on the top of his rump that exactly fitted the scars a 3-pronged pitchfork would leave - positioned where the person who did it HAD to have been on a wall or a fence above him, so NOT defensive wounds!) I made the mistake of entering his walk-in stable while he was in the attached yard carrying a pitchfork (to tidy his box) and ended up jumping the 6 foot yard fence with a killer stallion close behind me - he meant it!

He was credited with having killed THREE stud grooms in his country of origin (which was why he was exported!)- I don't know if that was true but it was certainly believable.

He actually wasn't THAT bad to handle most of the time - as long as you didn't raise your voice near him - that would set him off - or carry anything that looked like a whip or a pitchfork near him - although he was a nightmare to cover mares with as he was vicious with them as well and we had to use neckguards on them.
 
Its not lack of discipline - its lack of correct discipline (to whoever said it earlier) You cannnot discipline my horse with smacks or 'teaching him a lesson' (he'll teach YOU a lesson if you try that!) As Mike said about Lance, Ed will fight you if you turn to him with bloodyminded aggression in your head!! When he tries to bite me I just push him away, if he kicks out I ignore him, stamps, I ignore him, grinds his teeth - ignore him and then all of a sudden the behaviour dissapears because he knows I'm not going to go away, I have something to do, like groom or muck out etc and he's happy for me to carry on. However if I was to go to him and try and cwtch and kiss him, he'd blow a gasket!!!

Incidently Mike, Ed is a hunter born and bred, I wonder if there are some other correlations in behaviour? The one thing i can say about Ed is, put a bridle and saddle on him and *snaps fingers* he's a changed horse, I could let a child near him.

My horse just doesn't want fuss or cuddles or bother, he wants to work or be alone and for me thats fine, I accept his quirks on the basis that I have never found a more enjoyable safe ride.
grin.gif
 
I had a mare called the child eating wonderpony....I got her very cheap (read less than £50) as she used to try to kill her young owner - I didnt belive it until I saw it myself.

It took me a month to sort her. New yard, new routine. She was handled under supervision by kids on my yard, and was a changed woman until the child who I bought her from came to visit, and she morphed back into a nut job, literally tried to run through her stable door to kill the kid, teeth chomping.

It turns out the child used to torment her, and the clever mare had enough! She is now sold to a 16 year old girl who loves her, and is coming back to me next year whilst her new owner is on her gap year!! I love her she is a super, super pony.
 
Haven't personally had any experience of nasty horses myself.Have never worked with horses, just ridden for pleasure.A young woman I know though, told me about a horse she has just sold to Ruth Edge for dressage.Said she has had him from being a 6 month old foal.Always VERY defensive of his personal space in the stable.If smacked he would try and attack you, he just had to be managed.Lovely to break in and ride though, with cracking paces.She told Ruth about his quirks before sale and she wasn't worried.Never been abused as far as anyone knows.Acccording to Temple Grandin, who has written a very interesting book about animals called How Animals think , she says that when you breed very selectively for a certain trait, doesn't matter what it is, or what sort of animal, you get behavioural problems.I can highly recommend this book.Temple is autistic and thinks her form of autism is the missing link between how animals think and how humans think.Its very readable and she is SO unsentimental that she works with and audits major slaughter houses in the USA.McDonalds for one, will not use any slaughter house that does not pass her audit, which is to make the whole process as stress free as possible fortha animals.
 
My New Forest pony has some 'interesting' history. I bought her 10 years ago from someone my own age who'd outgrown her. At the time she was quite vicious, if you went into a stable with her she's back you into a corner and kick you. The day I bought her she took a chunk out of my arm. Leading, she would rear up, bite and kick. Approach her in the field and she would do the same. This wasn't helped by the said owner battering her with a whip whenever she did this. The mare had clearly programmed herself to fight back, and there's no way you're going to win a hand to hoof fight with a horse. Sometimes it did seem like she was fighting for her life, and had just lost all trust in everyone.

We moved yards, to a much quieter yard. I have never hit this mare since I've had her, it just doesn't work like that. If you raise a hand to her to will go to bite. Thankfully now, with years of kindness she's much better. She still has her odd habits, like going to nip with saddling (I think she's had her girth wrenched up in the past), and no-one but myself or my sister is allow to approach her in the field. No more kicking, although like I say, she has nipped up both very occasionally, nothing savage. The thing is, once you get a headcollar on her she's an angel, and she's fantastic to ride, At 21 loves going hacking with my sister on board.

I no nothing of her history, so I can't help you there. I assume somehting happened to her when she was young in order to make her the way she is. Poor girl, love her even more though!
 
Mine is on the agressive side. We dont have much history on him but there has to be something which lies deeper. I always have to have my wits about me when handling him but this has just come second nature to me. His stable is his space which he hates anyone entering it. Tie him up and he feels secure. He doesnt like new people and warns them to stay away but if your confident he is more confortable with you.
 
I think some horses while maybe not born out & out vicious will be naturally aggresive.
A friend of ours bred a mare who was always very aggressive right from day 1, she was born in a muddy gateway & when the vet tried to move her by putting his arms round her & guiding her out she kicked him! She was probably only about an hour old.
Her owner kept her for life as she was worried what would become of her if she was sold.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top