The Lieutenant Stallion Comes After A Mare

The lieutenant cames looking for a mare

About 10 minutes after we had seen the mare 12N marching the bay mare back to her band (for that story read here). We saw the lieutenant stallion appear on the beach just about in the same place the mares had exited. He looked east down the beach past our boat. He was very stiff, with his head held high and his tail lifted. He flared his nostrils, sniffing the wind and continued to look intently down the beach. He whined a few times. Then he broke first into a fast walk, then a trot, then a canter, then a gallop, heading east. He was most certainly on a mission. He came charging along the beach past our boat.

That’s when we saw the younger of the two mares, the one who had arrived into this band yesterday by the side of the mare 12N had just driven back down the beach. The younger mare was standing still, her head high in the air, staring frozen at the rapidly approaching stallion.

About 50 yards out from reaching her, the lieutenant lowered and stretched out his neck and head. His ears were pinned back. His nostrils were flared, and his eyes looked shiny and filled with fury. As he approached her, he veered out slightly away from her and then turned toward her so that he was right behind her.

She lashed out with a double-barreled kick that she did not land, and then started to run down the beach in the direction the stallion had just come from. It was clear that he meant her to go in that direction. It was clear that he had come to get her to drive her home to the band. It was also fairly clear that she did not want to go with him, but had no idea what to do but run and kick out whenever she felt like he was closing in on her. Back down past our boat, they came both in a full-on gallop.

The mare popped over a downed branch, I think hoping that that might slow the stallion, but he was right behind her. Finally, as the mare ran past the place the stallion had entered the beach, he slowed to a walk, and a little further down the beach, she also pulled up to a walk. The stallion re-entered the woods. We could no longer see him from the boat. The mare stood on the beach, standing still for a long time, regaining her breath. I think she was just calming herself down. We watched her standing there for quite a while. We went below to prepare for the day, and when we came out on deck again, we looked down the beach; she was gone.

I knew where I wanted to spend the day. I wanted to find the two-stallion band and see whether both the wayward mares had been incorporated into it or had defied the band members' efforts and gone their own way. It would be an interesting day finding out.

The young mare the stallion chased down the beach

Below is a video of a bit of the stallion setting out to get the mare, after spotting her down the beach. Unfortunately Bernie's iPhone stopped filming for a while when he must have hit the screen. He realized and was also able to capture a bit of the chase as well, which is in the second video below.