I am wondering about my gelding.  he is 6 now.  i mostly ride alone.  a few times i have gone on trail rides with others.  and only once or twice i've been in the same arena with others while riding.

i've never been to a show or other busy horse place with him, but, he did race a few times as a 2 yr old, so he has been around busy horse affairs.

he has been fine on those occassions.  what i find is when i'm on the ground and others come to the arena he gets all giddy.

last night for example.  i was longing on a line in the big arena.  we were doing well.  he was being a good boy.  not being a smart alec at all (he's like a kid, perfect one time and showing off by being a brat the next). he was trotting over ground poles and i had a couple jumps about 2 ft high to go over.  we had been there for 15 or 20 minutes.  we had already successfully worked in the round pen with no line for the previous 20 min or so.

then a couple riders showed up and asked if they could come in and ride.  i said sure.  my horse's interest in me dissapeared.  he started bucking and kicking on the lunge and kind of dragging me.  so, i caught him up close and he started dancing and showing off with his neck arched and nostrils flared, giving little excited whinnies, then he flipped his tail up over his back and kind of escalated the action a bit (looked good, wish a photographer had been handy.  he was under control (but only by training, he could have knocked me down and ran off on me in a new york minute).  all i could do was lead him with close contact near his halter and i would've felt better with a chain under his chin (he had his bridle on too, but, i don't like to ground handle a horse using the bit to control/reprimand him).  i had no hope of any more lunging and i certainly wouldn't have tried to get on to ride (which is what i was going to do before the neighbors showed up)

i'm just wondering, is this normal?  will he outgrow it?  should i make a point of spending more time with other horses?  he lives alone now, but, the last couple years he had a pasture mate and he was still like that in the arena.

oh, and these two horses are our neighbors.  a mare and a gelding.  he talks with them over the fence several times a day, when he is in that part of the property.

 Unfortunatly this is not something he will "grow" out of.  It's a matter of he is the boss and you are not.  I"m sure FH will chime in here with what to do to correct this behavior but yeah this is dangerous.  

Hi!

 Sounds like you had a young, energetic horse who was happy and excited to see his buddies. His reaction is normal, instinctual. Its your job as a handler to give him little jobs to keep him focussed on you. Ask him to yield his hindquarters, back up, yield his head left and right. Just little things to keep him busy.

Its normal for him to look, and I think you will be able to lessen the amount of time he spends being distracted by his surroundings, and continue to just ask him for his attention to be focussed on you.

This was a great opportunity to instill in him that although fun things are happening, he is still required to pay attention to you. You might benfit from asking the neighbors to come by more often and make a point of working with your gelding while they are there. Maybe start slow, by asking them to just stand quietly or walk calmly around the outside of the arena, but keep your guy busy and concentrating on you. Then slowy increase the amount of activity as he get better at minding you.

My 16 year old horse STILL has moments like this (especially around complete strangers or mares), but I just keep quietly and calmly asking him to perform little tasks, and that always helps him to settle and pay attention. Good luck and keep working on him!

I agree with TG, and I'm sure FH will agree if he shows up. Yes, that was a perfect opportunity to work on focus on his part and intent on your part. TG covered things pretty well so I won't reiterate them, except for ditto, ditto, and ditto. Athene was pretty full of herself, too, when I took her somewhere that had "stranger" horses, b/c even though she has friends at home, new horses are, well, new and exciting.

As a former track horse he was probably gelded late, stalled a lot, didn't develop any social skills in a herd environment and had time for the studish reactions to become ingrained behavior rather than testosterone driven. But there is also the possibility he is cryptorchid and may need to be tested. Racers are bred to be high spirited, competitive and often combative with other horses. When they don't work out as racers they often take those behaviors with them when being re-purposed. And they're hard to change because they were instilled and encouraged in the important formative years.

thanks again for your varied opinions.  always interesting and informative.   i think it's just high spirits and training, not physical.

but, i got to learn new things, as i spent some time learning about cryptorchidism (?)