I bought my gelding as a stallion from a local sulky racetrack a year ago (where he never got out of his stall except for training). He had just turned three and was very excitable, so we had him gelded. After several months, he seemed to calm down. He has become very attached to my husband and me, but he has behavioral problems.

First, he was scared of open spaces, but I worked him through that and I can now leave him alone outside. Another vice of his is flank biting, which he does less since moving farms where he now gets more turnout. But he still swirls in circles and kicks his stall to bits. He is also quite spooky, although I have trained him to ground spook now instead of bolting off.

He has never shown aggression to humans, and he is very affectionate to me and my husband, but has had over the last year four unexplainable explosive outbursts toward other horses. Even though I would never put him in the same paddock with another horse, he has on these occasions charged the fence at them as if he were going to smash right through and kill them. Then a few hours later or the next day, he will be all snuggly over the fence with them.

A lot of the time I notice he throws fits as if to seek attention–good or bad–and he sometimes displays separation anxiety for me and other horses. I love my horse dearly and don’t want to give up on him, but my first horse Nasa (a very gentle Standardbred gelding from the same track, then trained for saddle) was killed by an aggressive horse four months before I bought my new one, so I don’t want anyone to lose a horse and go through what I went through.

I also have never been brave enough to try saddling him, although I have put a saddle on his back while he was in crossties and he didn’t seem to care. He also has let me lay across his back momentarily.

Is he schizophrenic, or is there a way to explain how he can be the nicest horse for weeks or months, then for a short while become very scary? Maybe he needs more time to adjust to his new lifestyle. His discipline now is a lot slacker than it was in his track days, as is his work load. We have been using the gentling method of training with him. Please help; he is breaking our hearts.    Helene

It’s difficult to compare animals and people on the term psychotic, even in research where animals are used as models of human psychosis. But I’m sure everyone understands what you mean by the term psychotic with a horse such as yours with drastic changes in temperament and behavior. The first recommendation for cases of the behaviors you describe is to have the horse examined by a veterinarian very thoroughly, from head to toe–all systems. The goal is to find or rule out any physical problems that can be causing this horse physical discomfort that in turn would cause the temperament and behavior changes.

Pain can be the root cause of some of the behaviors you describe. Especially for flank-biting and “fit-throwing,” intermittent pain or increases in pain could be the cause. Chronic low-level pain from one or more sites can also lead to periods of behavior changes. Social challenges, such as being near other horses, can seem to lower the tolerance, if you will, for the pain. I’m not exactly sure from your note whether all these changes occur simultaneously. But as is often the case, even if they do it’s tough to judge whether all of his behavior is secondary to physical discomfort, whether there are one or more physical problems, or whether there are also primary behavioral problems. In other words, for the four main problems–flank-biting, spookiness, aggression toward other horses, and separation anxiety–it would be wise to proceed by considering a combination of physical and behavioral (psychological) causes.

So in addition to the veterinary examinations, it would be useful to have a behavior specialist work with your veterinarian. The behavior specialist might employ some videotaped examples of your horse’s “good” behavior and “problem” behavior. This enables frame-by-frame evaluation if necessary to better understand the behavior. In addition to the aggressive outbursts and spookiness, the behavior specialist might also recommend getting video samples of surveillance for many hours of your horse’s behavior just in the stall. When the horse is in the stall undisturbed by other animals or people, his postures, eating and resting patterns, urinating, defecating, and getting up and down behaviors can provide subtle cues as to where the horse might be painful. If necessary, this can be done as a long-distance consult if you don’t have a nearby behavior specialist.

You can usually get quality video yourself using ordinary consumer camcorders and VCRs. You can set up the video camera on a tripod with a good view of the entire stall through the stall front–just a broad view of the entire stall. It’s good to have samples during periods when the horse is doing well, and during periods when he has behavior problems. Finally, it would be useful to have videotaped samples from good and bad periods of the horse doing a standard physical activity. In this case, longeing or round pen ground work might be safely accomplished and periodically videotaped for evaluation by the veterinarian and behavior specialist.

If you haven’t already, it would be good to write down all that you can remember, with dates, and keep a detailed diary on this horse during good and bad periods. This will help the veterinarian and the behavior specialist, who will likely want to review the history in detail. For the flank-biting, for example, it will be useful for the veterinarian and the behavior specialist to know when it first started, the frequency, and any associations you have noticed with management and environmental factors.

While it’s possible, I doubt that all of the behavior problems you describe could be just the result of adjusting from racing to farm life. While you get these evaluations organized, your continued patient approach with gentle handling sounds good. I would agree with you also on your caution with not trying to start this horse for riding until these issues are resolved.