I kind of miss my old pony cocoa, cause he was a sound ride, very willing, but also green so it was fun to teach him new things, when I got him he didn't even know how to pick up the canter and teaching him was so fun, but.. he had a past.
The person we bought him from got him in an auction in another state, he had no name, and by his temperament, and some scarring, it was clear he was mishandled. Going near his back legs was risky, he would cow kick often, brushing him didn't come without him constant pinning his ears and trying to bite you, or attempting to cow kick you, and leaning over to bring the girth across to stomach almost always resulted in bruises. We knew these things, he was a charm under saddle completely quiet, but he was dangerous on the ground.
We tried every technique possible to work him through it, from super soft sweet approach, to hard-arss tough love approach and EVERYTHING in between. Some things we worked through [for instance in the few months we had him we managed to be able to safely pick out his back feet, and lead him into his stall without him charging into it] But some things we just couldn't change, he still kicked out hard during brushing and girthing, bit you when you were in his reach or off guard.
On one instance I was walking by him with his saddle to put on a rack in front of him, as I walked by him with it he swung his back end at me, pinned me against the wall, and as I was pinned there repeatedly kicked at me with his leg, I struggled out of there and shrugged it off.
Another instance I was girthing him and he swung his back leg forward hard and slammed me in the back of the leg, this was one of the few instances I couldn't dodge him.
The instance that iced the cake was when my mother was walking by him one night while he was on the cross ties, and had to lift the cross tie a bit and crouch down a bit to pass, which he never really minded. This time however, he bit down hard on my moms head, pulling out a chunk of hair and skin from her scalp, we gave him back to his old owner, for free, that night while my mom was in the hospital getting a tetanus shot and barely avoiding stitches.
In a sense, we probably no matter what we did be able to make this horse safe, but I still miss him, he was probably the safest horse I've ever ridden, incredibly fun to teach new things, but he was just so violent on the ground, he was a cute little guy, chestnut roan and a pony [breed unknown] this is him: