I would say my mare is pretty affectionate, for a mare. When I worked at a stable, I found most of the mares knew their jobs, did their jobs, and were satisfied doing just that, where the geldings always seemed to need babying. I could let the mares out of the stalls and they'd trot right to their paddocks. I could have left those gates open all day and they wouldn't bother to leave until feeding time.

The geldings though..they all had to be hand walked and they preferred to be walked individually because unless they were being ridden that day, that was the extent of their human contact. And they were pretty damn affectionate.

We had our two prissy mares and our two bitchy mares, but they didn't stir up trouble, just gave angry faces. The ONLY horses I had problems with were the GELDINGS who weren't in-your-pocket. If they weren't in-your-pocket, they were just pricks. We had a gelding named Donas who very much WANTED to be loved on, but his owner more or less showed up, rode, hopped off and left. And I'm not sure he knew HOW. Once the other stablehand and myself straightened him out (taught him enough manners to get him to and from his paddock), he was much more relaxed and very affectionate. Even his owner noticed a difference.
His paddock partner was Rowdy, who was essentially the same. The stable owner let me spend the two weeks I stayed there during the winter, while she was on vacation, working Rowdy for a few minutes two or three times a day, just grooming and hand walking and lunging him. It made a world of difference in him as well.

The other gelding we had a problem with was the gelding at the end of the row and he was just a punk. He wanted nothing to do with people and he had it set in his mind what he wanted to do and he was going to do it. He was 5 years off-the-track and I don't think his owner had even taken into consideration that he was an OTTB. She had two other sporthorse Thoroughbreds who were well settled and very much sane, but from what I knew, he came off the track and went right into training for a showjumping career. There was no downtime, and I think it blew his mind. He was practically neurotic. I hated having to deal with him because while he was a gorgeous horse, he just made my job a million times more difficult and there was nothing I was allowed to do that could make it easier. In the winter his owner went from four rides a week down to ONE and paddock time was limited so he became nothing short of a hellion at that point.


Now my own mare is EXTREMELY affectionate. She likes to know her job, and some days she seems ho-hum about it, but once you kind of reel her in for "personal time" she wants to be loved on and groomed and she'd follow me all over that pasture for a skritch on the ear.
Especially when she's in season. When she's in season she gets what I call "cuddly". My family's mares are always more "flighty" or "standoffish" when in season, but not Kahlua. She is up your ASS when she's in heat. Not pushy. Just "cuddly". But then again, due to moving and mishaps and accidents..we've spent a lot of time forging that relationships and I don't have a problem spending a couple hours at the barn doing nothing but "playing", so she really does look forward to it.