Hi All. This article really saved my bacon this week, so I thought I would share it. It's well worth reading if you have a sensitive horse like I do. I got my horse raw, as a semi feral, untouched horse. It has not been without it's challenges I can tell you. He is a sensitive, very smart and has learned to trust but has always lost trust very easily and made it hard to earn it back. He is 4yo now and is backed and going nicely. He has however always had issues with biting and is aggressive at feed time. Recently he started nipping again, and as I learned, do to me reacting, either jumping with fright or trying to reprimand by jerking the head-collar and saying no, firmly, or backing him up, squaring up etc. All this contributed to drawing attention to the bad behavior which suddenly escalated dramatically! He began trying to take a bite every-time I got close to him. I frantically researched online and after finding a lot of advice I would never try I found the ASPCA web site which was a god-send. I had often suspected the approach they recommend for sensitive horses would be right for this particular horse but just needed confirmation. After trying it i realized it is the exact approach to take with this horse and am looking forward to putting it further into practice. In just a couple of sessions the biting has virtually ceased entirely, and i think that given time it will disappear-hopefully. I'm not saying this is right for every horse as they are all so different, and do what they do for different reasons, but for my horse this was the jackpot. See link below.

http://www.aspca.org/Pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/horse-articles/horses-who-are-sensitive-to-handling