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It never hurts to try putting these animals together, but you must always supervise the first encounter and be ready to intervene. It's also important put them in a large area where animals can avoid or escape from each other more easily. It's generally a bad idea to enclose unfamiliar animals in small spaces, even if they are the same size and species. For example I never turn horses out for the first time together in a round pen where they can't get away from each other. Forcing them to share a small space is asking for trouble, and it can turn ugly real fast as you discovered. Had they been allowed to go into a larger pasture, your mare would probably have never come close enough to your dominant goat to get whacked after the first blow. And your goat would not have been in good enough shape to pursue her all over the field. They'd have found their own spaces and probably worked it out.
We had a rough time getting my two-year-old colt to accept my goat as one of his "herd." He's one of those horses that will chase any non-human that moves through his pasture, including unfamiliar horses. And he will often try to stomp dogs and goats. But I added electric cross-fencing to give Cuzco a way to slip under and escape, and our property has a lot of scrub oak scattered conveniently about, so Cuzco was always able to go someplace where Skokie couldn't reach him. In the long run it's worked out well and was worth making sure they got used to each other because now Cuzco has buddies to hang out with (he loves horses but is highly suspicious of other goats), and he also has excellent body guards. I was very worried about bears when we moved out to this farm, but I've discovered that my horses think bears make excellent sport, and I even watched one night while they drove away a mother and cub who were eyeing our goat hungrily until the horses caught sight of them. The horses were still actively patrolling the fence line half an hour after they'd driven the bears away! So there can definitely be benefits to letting your horses and goats live together if you can make it work. But you're quite right that a dominant goat with a docile horse in a small paddock is a very bad combination.
We had a rough time getting my two-year-old colt to accept my goat as one of his "herd." He's one of those horses that will chase any non-human that moves through his pasture, including unfamiliar horses. And he will often try to stomp dogs and goats. But I added electric cross-fencing to give Cuzco a way to slip under and escape, and our property has a lot of scrub oak scattered conveniently about, so Cuzco was always able to go someplace where Skokie couldn't reach him. In the long run it's worked out well and was worth making sure they got used to each other because now Cuzco has buddies to hang out with (he loves horses but is highly suspicious of other goats), and he also has excellent body guards. I was very worried about bears when we moved out to this farm, but I've discovered that my horses think bears make excellent sport, and I even watched one night while they drove away a mother and cub who were eyeing our goat hungrily until the horses caught sight of them. The horses were still actively patrolling the fence line half an hour after they'd driven the bears away! So there can definitely be benefits to letting your horses and goats live together if you can make it work. But you're quite right that a dominant goat with a docile horse in a small paddock is a very bad combination.
