Learning or Coping?

Cookie is 5 months pregnant. SUPRIZE! We have another mom-to-be on the ranch. About 10 days into their stay at RHR I separated them in turn out. I intergrated Tessa in with the group of mares next to Cookie. Cookie stayed in the original turn out and I gave her Bianca, a gentle older Arabian mare, for company. The first day I separated them, Cookie seemed unphased. Tessa on the other hand went straight to pacing the fence any time Tessa wasn’t with in touching distance. I witnessed something very peculiar that day… all the other mares gathered at the fence line preventing Tessa from continuing her neurotic pacing. The other mares just stood there quietly as if they were demonstrating how Tessa should behave. The horses were “making the wrong thing difficult” for Tessa and the “right thing easy.” The amount of healing, teaching and support that comes from a well regulated heard is priceless for a distressed horse like Tessa. These mares are stoic and I can tell that when horses like Tessa join the group it causes some level of distress for them too. Most of them came from similar mindsets as Tessa. Fearful of their environment, confused about simple horse communication or concerned about their next meal. I wonder, if they see another horse behaving irregularly in the heard it brings back those coping mechanisms and feelings from inside themselves…