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I've spent a lot of time contemplating the mental capacity of other mammals, particularly horses.  My strategy is to try to extrapolate information about their brains from their behavior.  My pony has a lot of what I would term, common sense.  For example, we were once charged head-on by a buck during mating season and my pony responded by standing up on her hind legs, rearing, to return the challenge.  This was definitely aggressive behavior. 

Yet horses are generally considered flight as opposed to flight animals.  I wonder why she behaved in a way that was counter-instinctual.  What in her experience could have led her to think that it was an appropriate course of action?  Did she in fact think about it at all?  Does she possess a neocortex capable of problem-solving?  Or is this simply an example of my anthropomorphizing my pony?  If not, how would her brain compare to another horse's brain?