No idea about the teeth but i hope your alright! Sounds like you have a good challenge on your hands! What's the next plan of action with her? I handled a youngster who's ''kick zone' could be any measured zone too. Stay safe!

Hope your ok Mel!! My first Pony caught me in the chest, only with her toes at full extension, but it still hurt I was 10 at the time! Stay safe maid!

You were mighty lucky Mel - welcome to the club!!!
she could have wolf teeth coming through or not erupted just in front of her molars, these can be a problem, Libby's were taken out as even though the vet said her's were
quite big & shouldn't cause a problem, she's so sensitive & she was very fussy, i wasn't even going there.
Not all mares get canine teeth, so that's no indication of age.

Beryl: you've just prompted me to go and do some more studying on teeth as I realise I do not know much about it and I've been meaning to do something about this so thankyou :-) Mel, as you know the passport monitoring system in the UK is at best pathetic and at worst downright fraudulent so it is highly possible that her age is wrong (I've heard plenty of storied where horse and passport have no connection with each other at all!). As Widgy - I'm interested to know how you are going to resolve this issue with her not behaving around other horses.

vicci, i had to think about it - sad fact, as we get older & learn more, we also forget stuff we used to know well; when you're dealing with just your own horses & not buying them, that info isn't too necessary to remember??? I dread to think how much i can't remember any more :).
Mel, i would think she's scared around the other horses when they are in "her space" which may be very different to what we think her space is.
What is she like turned out with others? Has she mixed with others before or been in a sedentary herd?

There is always a residual risk. Could have happened to Monty as well with Fergus. I also had a similar experience last week. The horse did not kick me but the bucking was unexpected and started close to me. I am thinking of wearing the protecting west when dealing with young horses. By the way, kicking to the thorax is not the worst case, the face is the most vulnerable part because it can't be protected.
I think it is important to discuss things that have gone bad in our group. Looking at the comments the risk may be much higher than expected because we hesitate to discuss our errors.
Rudi

Hi Rudi,
Thank you for mentioning this point, everytime there is a remedial horse on the UNI, there is a warning, that those horses need the handling of " advanced professional trainers".
Most of us might have been around horses all our lives, have a solid education what concerns training horses, but we most probably are not professional trainers.
I guess a lot depends on how we judge the situation and how well our timing is, but as you say, there's always a risk involved. Even if the horse is trying for you, as happened to me one day with a young stallion, that was afraid to cross the "stream" of lake-and-stream, and decided to give it a try, just when I stopped asking, release of pressure, there he jumped over the small stream, I happened to be in the way and he bumped into me. Good footing and a bootshaft saved my leg from breaking, nothing but the imprint of his bare hoof on my lowerlegs' muscles, and my gratitude for him trying so hard for me.
Still I realised that it was a great risk I had taken....
Later Monty advised to not have the horse on a leadrope/longline, when working with this kind of resistance. I learned the hard way and was lucky!
Miriam

absolutely, we're all at risk when we work with horses, not just remedial ones, accidents can happen any time. We can only take precautions to work safely, but accidents are just that - accidents & you can suddenly be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My mare didn't fall on her face cantering across the field causing me to crack my rib on purpose!
You can be in the way when a sudden noise scares the horse & you get run over!

hi guys, thanks for all the comments. I'm sure I'll have many more accidents to come as it's remedial horses I'm working with. it would help if the owners were a bit more truthful about their horses. Found some interesting facts today about this horse to show it's been a long term issue with her. Can't say on here as the forum is public for viewing.
Beryl, noted on mares and teeth and yes very well know that the UK passport system is a farce. when we first got BamBam he was passported as a gelding, hey ho spring comes and the mares are offering to our Bam, he had a vet check to find he'd not dropped fully so could have passed as a gelding but was not. £300 later and he was :-)
Something I've started doing on YouTube when watching accidents that people have on horses and slowing the speed of the accident down, nearly everyone was caused by human error. One I was watching of a young girl falling off over a jump, just a ten second clip? in the 10 seconds you see the jump, landing, the fall then the horse does a buck that at first look was directed at the girl. In Slow motion you could see the horse realise that it's rider was not balanced and for a fraction of a second it went to refuse the jump but realised it was too late so took her over the jump, she's then fallen onto his neck and he kept his head up to save her whilst he landed, then as she fell off she kept hold of the reigns dragging his head to the right whilst he was still turning left, as she let go you could see that if he didn't take action he would have fallen over too as she'd totally put him out of balance, so he did a buck that took his feet over her head and land just right to rebalance himself to prevent himself from falling.
we see so little with the pace of things around us, horses have such amazing abilities to judge and react so quickly.

You are so right Mel, my beloved Rocky is an example; when my niece was very young, we went down the hill to get him in & let my niece ride him up, me leading him & my mum walking the other side, he kept stopping & i didn't know why, when he took another step forward when asked, my niece fell off the side, she didn't look like she would, but he could feel her unbalanced & was trying to stay underneath her - she never said she felt like she was falling off either! He was a clever boy!
Another time, many years later, When Rocks was getting on a bit, i got Sally, an 11hh welsh pony as a companion for him, he at first used to run her around & she used to let fly with her back feet; one day i followed her through the gateway into the next paddock & she let fly, looked over her shoulder, saw it was me, very wide eyed & pulled her feet tight under her tummy instead of lashing out with them, fast thinking, i was very grateful as i quite like my head on my shoulders thanks!!!
Libby's back & bum muscles are very powerful when she "flicks" them, I've been punched out of the saddle many times, but she's - up till now - had the good grace to catch me on the way down:) Just hope we don't go A over T again (not her fault, or mine) really had enough of dragging broken bones around :(

I wonder if anyone has done tests to see how fast horses actually think
Good ol Libby catching you, perhaps she wanted to readjust your seat :D
X

I went to a very interesting lecture recently on human decision making and how there is activity in the brain before we are consciously aware of making the decision which is hard to get your head round because how can your brain know that you are making a decision you haven't made yet?! However, it did get me thinking...we often hear of horses that can sense every movement a rider makes when the bond is strong "You only have to think left and the horse and the horse begins to translate that into his own movement" - being flight animals and so tuned to the slightest movement it made me wonder if they can sense the electrical activity in our brain before we are even consciously aware of it. This would often explain how what happened "came from nowhere".... just me thinking out loud...I haven't worked out the science for this yet!

Hi Vicci,
A very interesting topic you bring up! I recently read a book by the Dutch brainspecialist Dick Swaab called "We are our brain" written for interested laymen like you and me, explaining what you describe above. Left and right hemisphere functions do complement eachother, as described in "Zen mind, zen horse" by Allen Hamilton, also a brainspecialist.
I consider both books very worthwhile for those that are interested in "learning" and how it works, in humans as well as in animals! There is so much more intuition involved than we think...
Miriam

They sound interesting books Miriam!
Vicci, do you think that even though we've only just had the thought, that our muscles may be responding ever so slightly already, but we aren't aware of it?
Mel :D I'm sure she'd love to adjust my seat - right out of the saddle sometimes he he!!!
You should try sitting on her sudden stops!!! Boy have i nearly nosedived into the dirt!She so quick, but then she is 5/8 Arab.

Yes Beryl, that's what I was thinking, the electrical activity in the brain is transmitted to the muscles so the horse senses it. However, the bit that is a bit mindblowing is that there is a suggestion that we made that decision before we consciously knew we had made that decision....it makes my head hurt thinking about that concept... :-)

Hmm, our brain is an amazing bit of kit & i guess our conscious mind is only a tiny bit of it, the subconscious does so much more that we're unaware of - but i better not tax my poor brain that much or it might explode :D