horse sense

Yesterday morningn I put Sparrow out into the large pasture with the mares. After a few hours I went outside to check on him only to find him loose and grazing in the alfalfa field. Again i checked him over for any injuries and found none. Next move was checking all of the 5ft high fencing to find it perfectly in tact with only one difference; take off and landing marks next to the driveway with tracks leading to the alfalfa. It appears my mustang has some talent in jumping ;) He stayed in the pen for the rest of the evening however.
Just before dark I caught Sparrow and was in the process of leading him back to his pen. He was walking quietly with his head down on a loose lead like normal when he froze in his tracks and stared off toward another field with his head up. Thinking he simply saw one of the neighbors horses I tried to encourage him through the gate. He didnt move. All he would do was stare past the fence into the field and on occasion glance back at me. It was almost completely dark and I could see nothing so was getting rather annoyed. After close to 10 minutes of not being able to get him to move I finally walked over to the fence seperating the pasture from the field to show him there was nothing worth paying attention to when a coyote took off in the opposite direction not even 100yrds away. As soon as the coyote was over the hill Sparrow resumed to leading with his head down calmly to his pen without any more problems.