Gelding suddenly mounting mare - why?
 

My gelding has been turned out with the same mare for years, and normally shows absolutely no interest in her when she's in season. However, over the past few days both have had cuts and wounds and this morning we did observe my gelding going into full "stallion mode" and try to mount her. She has been quite obviously in season the past few days, and we had a suspicion that this is why they fought, as my gelding did show some interest in her when returned to the field (sniffing, nickering), which he doesn't normally do. The only thing that has changed is that two other geldings have moved back into neighbouring paddocks recently (only one of which is sharing an actual fence line with ours, and appears to show no interest in the mare). These are horses that have been in adjacent paddocks every year in summer, and we've never had this sort of problem before. Any ideas what may have brought on this change? I can only think that having two more geldings in close proximity has somehow enhanced the mare's season enough for my gelding to take notice, but I can't quite figure out why now, when this hasn't happened in previous years.

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