Two Herd Bound Horses

I get to the barn tonight and Cody and Axel are in the front pasture by themselves. They're grazing a bit and are pretty calm and not concerned with the other horses in the back pasture. I was early enough that no one else was around, I had forgotten that the hunter girls ride on Monday. I was going to see if I could at least get some grooming done before they got there so Cody and I went into the barn. Cody slipped on the aisle floor because his feet were muddy and that scared him. I was going to crosstie him but he was pretty worked up so I just tied him to one while I grabbed my grooming bag. Actually by that time he had calmed down but I decided to go into the arena with him to do a little groundwork before grooming. While we were in there I could here some really weird noises coming from outside. At first I thought it was from the mares next to the arena but I realized it was Axel. I let Cody go so I could check and make sure Axel wasn't going to knock down a fence or anything. He was in the pasture running around as fast as he could. Unfortunately my video taping did not work out how I had planned so I only ended up with one sort of usable video.

So now I'm thinking "great they move my horses and now I have to deal with two herd bound horses." I brought Cody outside, luckily Axel had taken a break from his heart attack so I wasn't rewarding his behavior. I put Cody on the hitching rail and groomed him out there.

The hunter girls arrived and took their horses out of the pastures. The horses that had been in the front pasture were now in with the grays and Danny. When the girl took her mare out those horses started having a fit. Then Diva the arab mare was having a fit because her pasture mate was in the arena as well. Then Axel was having a fit. And Cody was calling. It was really great, I was getting quite frustrated. When I was done grooming Cody I started walking him back and forth within sight and out of sight of Axel to try and bore Axel of the whole ordeal. The barn owner came out and mentioned that Cody was doing so well. I pointed out that I now had two herd bound horse. Her response was that "they'll get over it." I agree, they will get over it, I want them to get over it so I can have my horses back and maybe have them a little more able to go out alone or stay alone in the pasture. But I wish the "they'll get over it" attitude applied when my horses were having issues in the herd. Instead they just pulled them out of that herd and put them alone to leave me to deal with not being able to handle either of my horses due to herd bound-ness. Ug. Anyway I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now because all the horses were worked up, it was cold, the wind was blowing like mad, and everyone was running around. We'll reassess when things calm down in general.

Axel had started to calm down quite a bit so I put Cody back in the pasture and took Axel out. At least Axel is calm when he's with even just another person. Cody isn't. Axel stood at the hitching rail while I groomed. He's started shedding again so I was covered in hair by the time I was done. Since it was so windy I cleaned out my grooming bag as well, it was full of hair. I put Axel back and sort of hoped they'd all run around again but they just went on their way grazing.