I have Arabs and Morgans or crosses thereof, so I'm not
terribly familiar with Mustangs, but what I do know of
them is they are intelligent horses.

My neighbor has a 6 or 7 year old Mustang from off the
range...probably since he was a 2 yr old. She is so
constantly worried about her horse...she's sure he's a
spooky horse; and maybe he is, but I've never seen him
do anything spooky...other than canter off across his
paddock a couple of times. There have been instances
when a spooky horse might have done something weird, but
I see him standing there watching things most of the time
rather than acting spooky. She's convinced he's going to
spook and run through a fence. It's an obviously easy to
see board fence.

I'm becoming a little tired of hearing this, because most
of the things a person normally does...like mowing the lawn
and other really benign things she worries about. Her
paddocl adjoins my 4 acre pasture and she called last night
because she said she heard my horses running in the pasture
and thought they were going to come through her fence, so
she went out to comfort her horse so he wouldn't run
through the fence.

Please! My horses love to run and sometimes they do it
for fun. If I go into my pasture after dark, I can't see
my horses, but I can hear them, because they come at a
gallop. I used to worry they'd run over me, until I
realized they have no intention of stepping on me. I will
lift my arms (sometimes) just to make sure they don't come
too close, because there are 6 of them, but that's it. I
KNOW some horses will and do run through fences, but if they
know where the fences are, they probably aren't going to
do that.

So, can I get some opinions on this? I think the Mustang is
an intelligent horse and life on the range has added to this.
I think she's watched too much of Flicka and those horses
were directly off the range...this guy isn't! Like I mentioned
I have Arabs...and they are not spooky or stupid enough to
run through a fence. Arabs are VERY smart horses, but I
believe Mustangs are too!

She has had him less than a year, so I think she's just
being an overprotective horse mom. If he's really as spooky
as she seems to think, she needs a different horse because
she isn't really an experienced horsewoman.

Thanks,

Kat