PHASE 2: MAKEOVER EVENT

We arrived at our facility still pretty early, but I had already decided to let him chill out in a small fenced area nearby meanwhile I finished tidying up the stall.
From all the options of forever homed Loshenka we had, I chose Caramel to be the new one neighbour. She's a very polite and gentle mare, but wasn't afraid to correct other horses when they invaded her space, a perfect pair for what I needed.
I'd let them know each other through the fenced part of the stall first and then put both in a reserved corner of the pasture, none had aggressiveness towards other horses, so in this matter I wasn't that nervous.
Once stall was all organized, I went get him. Again was almost stepped and bumped on quite some times, he didn't seem to have any type of health issue though, like low sight, was indeed lack of an experienced hand... and any other horse friend.
I let him in the stall and stay nearby, watching what he'd do.
First was a good roll, they said it's a common thing he liked to do everywhere new, maybe release some tension. Second he noticed Caramel watching him from her stall and straight up went to try and nose her, what she did accept, she loved being with other horses and groom them. However he got a bit too comfortable and went for a nip, what she quickly responded with pinned ears and a VERY displeased squeal. He backed off, just staring at her, I could almost feel his brain working that situation.
I got another hint from this occurance, he didn't get aggressive or frustrated with other horses corrections, apparently just from humans... that makes me wonder what the previous owner did.
(...)
On the third day I finally decided to start working with him and that meant was time for a barn name too.
Meanwhile slowy entering the building, I noticed him nosing Caramel, respectfully, not biting, just smushing his lips on her face. Guess he learned not to bite her lips and was interested enough to find a way to still interact.
In the end my pairing seemed to be working well... so why not try to match their names for fun? I kept wondering for some minutes and settled on calling him Biscuit, was cute and had a nice sound for calling.
Before anything else I worked on leading and paid special attention not to use any type of correction behaviour as "no", "stop it" and, of course, violence based things, as this was totally against our sanctuary principles.
We started with yielding to pressure, always with praise and positive reinforcement, he turned out to be a very fast learner. Later we trained a bit of backing and, finally, respecting the space between us.
In less than a week he was already a lot better, no frustration symptons were noticed, he seemed very happy to gain treats and pats. I really tried to make training something Biscuit would enjoy and be eager to do.
Once he learned the rules on leading, I finally took Caramel for their first moment fully togheter and it ended up better than I expected.
From this moment on I tried to keep both near each other on trainings, he watched a lot the way she did things so he could get some treats and pats too, plus Caramel sometimes corrected him for me if he was a bit too hyper.
(...)
We worked for months togheter, the three of us, Biscuit was a whole other horse, he came when called, respected human and other horses boundaries, I felt confident enough to start working alone with him and really invest all I could in our bond.