How does a horse react when an enemy is approaching?

Answer 1

Horses are prey animals so if an ememy is approching they will try to escape by running away. If a horse hears something behind it and doesn't know what it is than it will probably whirl around to see what it is. However horses can be trained to be less "spookable" and some horses are just naterally less fearful than others. You could explode a bomb next to my pony(could not should!) and he wouln't move a muscle, but our horse Ivan spooks at leaves blowing across the grass.

Answer 2

Horses are very fast creatures, so when they detect an enemy, they choose the fight or flight response. Most horses choose flight but a mother with a young foal will choose fight, as well as a stallion protecting his band. Horses deliver very strong kicks with around 10,000 newtons worth of force and a mother defending her foal will deliver much more force enough to easily cause the skull of the predator to cave inwards. If a horses chooses to take flight, they can gallop up to 50 miles per hour (70.76 kilometers per hour) the fastest speeds for their predator is 37mph (60 kph) for a wolf. So in summary, horses can either run away because they are faster than their predator, or fight them with a kick that could instantly kill them.