A Dominance Move?

Bowthorne Matty’s tail head is just showing at the bottom of this picture that I took mounted of the herd following us.

I had prepared all the feed buckets and was beginning to halter and tie my Fell Pony mares prior to feeding them.  As always, I haltered and tied the lead mare first, intending to work my way down/through the herd.  As I walked to the next pony, I heard a scuffle behind me and thought I saw a lower ranking mare threaten the tied mare.  It’s of course my job to protect any pony that is tied because they can’t protect themselves, so even though I wasn’t certain that I’d seen the lower ranking mare make a dominance move, I haltered and tied her next just in case.

The next morning it was gloriously beautiful.  The mares hadn’t come in on their own, so I went out in search of them.  I knew the day was going to be good when I found a piece of petrified wood near the herd, my first such find since moving to the Black Hills of South Dakota the year before.  The day then continued in that uplifting vein when I rode the lead mare into the barn with the rest of the herd following.  I get such a thrill out of riding with the herd like that!

Not long after the ride commenced, when we entered an open area, I noticed the same lower ranking mare pick up speed and head straight toward us in a somewhat threatening way.  Before I could decide on a plan to protect my mount and me, one of the other mares ran between us, pushing the threatening mare away.  My savior stayed between us and the threatening mare the rest of the way into the barn. 

The next day, the farrier was here to trim hooves, and he was working on the lower ranking mare.  That mare’s foal was separated from her while the farrier was working.  The foal had decided she’d been separated from her mother long enough and approached the fence dividing her from her mother.  She apparently got too close to another mare because that mare pinned her ears, snaked her neck out, and chased the filly a short distance off.  Immediately the lead mare used the same behavior to chase off the filly’s pursuer.  I was fascinated by this seeming disciplinary behavior by the lead mare of the pursuing mare.

I always find how my ponies interact to be fascinating.  Mostly the herd is peaceful, so I don’t very often get to see the sorts of behavior I did on these days.  The display by the lead mare doesn’t require anything on my part.  But now that I have two observations that a change in leadership in the herd may be underway, I will be more observant of herd interactions.  I need to protect not only myself but also any tied pony until the ramifications of the dominance moves by the lower ranking mare work themselves out.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one can be found in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.