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Marlene,

Horse's will kick for a lot of reasons. There are I think two main 
reasons. One is they are trying to dominate. The other is they are 
intimidated and it is out of self defense. That is they need more 
confidence. While it is hard to tell with certainty - I suspect your 
horse might fall into the lack of confidence category. Maybe the boss 
mare protecting him didn't make him "top of the herd" it gave him a 
sense of security that she would take care of him. His security blanket 
is now gone.

I would try to spend more time riding him alone to build his confidence 
in both himself going down the trail and confidence in you. As someone 
else pointed out you don't have to be in arena to do "arena work" you 
can do it on trail. Train him the basics "dressage" moves on trail. Work 
him onto the bit. Teach him to round. Teach him to lengthen and shorten 
his stride. Teach him to side pass. Teach him turns on forehand and 
haunches.

Introduce other horses slowly and let him build his confidence slowly 
with other horses. With the dressage training, you can divert his mind 
to something he knows.  It might take awhile but I think if you teach 
him to have confidence in himself and in you. That might go a long way 
in dealing with aggressive behavior.

Truman

--

“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how 
smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong” Richard 
Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics


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