What do you do with your mare when she's in heat?

I keep an eye on my girl. If I can tell that she's in heat, then I don't ride her unless I have a deathwish... (luckily, I can't tell when she's in heat very often).

If I can't tell at all, I continue on as if she's not in heat.

I can even tell when duchess is in heat she acts no different and I don't do anything different. She is her same sweet self everyday.

Lol... well nita usually just acts a bit more... like snotty. The wierd thing is that when we go to our county show, she's always in heat, cause it's always the same week of the year, and i've never lost a showmanship class. >.> strange isn't it. And she always does her best in every other class, too... but when we go to state, two weeks later, she always gets like... she's not in heat and it's like she doesn't know what to do or how to act around other horses when she's not in heat. As if when she is she can be like, oh, okay, and be mean and kicky and then strut her stuff in the show arena... but if she's not in heat, we do bad. It sucks. Lol.

Bailey and dazzle, on the other hand...

Whenever they are around other horses, ANY other horse, if they even see one, they go into heat... and they don't act any different, really, but it's just annoying that they pee all the time. >.<

And then there's flair. She's like only two but she cycles just like a big horsey lol. She's been doing that since she was a weanling haha. And she's a mean baby girlie during that week and it's impossible to teach her anything so I usually give her that week off.

And lastly, classy. She NEVER is in heat. All business lol.

A couple weeks ago, I ponied my stallding off of my mare while she was in heat. Neither one gave me a problem.

My mare gets a little lazy when she's in heat. She doesn't get pissy at all. If I ask her to do something, she does it... She'd just rather not. Does anyone else's mare act like that?

Sandie used to be pretty bad when she was in heat - she would get all nervous, VERY distracted, and she would scream at EVERYTHING!!!!! You could not ride her without her calling out to every other horse in the barn! We put her on Mare Magic and it took awhile but over time, it really evened things out for her. She sometimes has 1 bad day during her cycle that she still likes to call to everyone, but she doesn't act out like she used to.

As many others have said, I just keep her away from the boys during that day or two when she's really being bad! And I may not jump with her depending on how she's acting...just lots of slow trotting and dressage work to get her to pay attention to me and not to the geldings in the next pasture over!