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[RC] Tailgating a kicker - Lysane Cree

I've been following this topic with interest, since I will be starting my young horse in the spring. I want to work on her attitude before I take her to a ride. So far I have ridden with different people/horses and have had different reactions from my mare. She is a dominant horse and tries to boss other horses around in the pasture. She is often testing me as well to see if I'll let her get away with something (wrong person though LOL).
 
The first horse I rode with, a mare, she had never seen before. My friend and I arranged to meet up on the trail and rode together. My mare never did anything, we rode side by side, sometimes my mare in front, sometimes behind and she never pinned her ears.
Another day, I was riding in a field where some other people were riding and I was about 10 feet from another horse (a gelding) . My mare pinned her ears, swung her hips and started backing up to kick. The other horse started to do the same, so I gave my mare a smack with the end of a rein to get her to move out before she got a chance to kick.
This weekend I rode with yet another horse - my mare has been pastured with this other mare for about a month now (and many other horses), so they know each other. My mare behaved both in the lead and behind (she tends to want to jog more though when she is behind) but when the other horse came up beside her she pinned her ears. She didn't kick which was good, but she wasn't happy.
So far, she hasn't kicked while I 've ridden her but there have been some close calls. The trainer I sent her to told me that she had kicked when he first took her on the trail with another horse.
 
My reaction would be to punish her if she did kick, but having been on another horse that I didn't know kicked, it can happen so quickly the reaction can be delayed a little. I'm wondering what I can do to get her to be more trustworthy to not kick. As a novice, I'm sure lots of people will be passing me on the trail. Of course, I'll put the biggest red ribbon I can find in her tail, but I want to work through rather than just say "oh well my horse kicks". 
 
Lysane

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