Hi gemm, great question and the answer I'm offering makes me think you might be on to something. I gave my mare and my wife's gelding some 12% feed that morning, but only about one and a half quarts each. I didn't think that would make much of a difference, but evidently you aren't the only one that thought it could have an effect.  One of the other trail riders asked me the same question in a round about way that evening and suggested not giving them ANY grain, unless they absolutely needed it and they were already getting it on a regular basis. I had forgotten about that conversation until I read your question. Like I said, maybe you are on to something with the feed? Let me see what comes up with her behavior in the next few weeks after experimenting with the feed and seeing if I can duplicate the scenario on the trail ride. Now that I think about it, I fed her the same feed, the same way on the first trail ride a week before the Memorial Day trail ride. Hmmmmmm, guess I'll keep working on this and thanks for the input. Happy trails.

houddog, once again, I can't disagree with your logic and you bring it with a lot of experience and facts. Overall, I think you are right because my mare is "a thinker" and does not submit well. She has a lot of pride, is pretty and she knows it. I think you are hitting the nail on the head with your approach to solving my problem with my favorite mare. Plus the fact, that I'm probably thinking about the problem too much as well. My only fear is there's a problem physically with her being a pill and between me worrying about it and the neighbor doing an excellent job eliminating it, I think we've got that part of taken care of. I'm going to concentrate on the training part of it, take her out of her comfort zone, maybe box stall her for a few days, demote her from her position as "queen of the paddock" and move on from there. Thanks for your input houddog, I appreciate it. Happy trails.