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My mom's 20 year old mare does it a lot. In her case getting mad at her helps a little bit, but she's kinda set in her ways.

I would check for pain--bad saddle fit, girth galls, a dirty girth--before assuming it's just bad behavior. Regardless of whether there is pain now, it's likely at some point that there was pain that was ignored and that's why she started the behavior in the first place, not a bad behavior that wasn't corrected.

This is likely what we call an "avoidance" behavior, meaning it's a behavior meant to try to stop a painful or scary stimulus. It's defensive. You can use long and patient and consistent training to overcome this sort of defensive behavior, or you can simply see to it that she can't reach you when you (slowly, gently) tighten the girth. Anytime you decide to "teach her a lesson" by yanking up the girth hard, you're reinforcing the defensive behavior, so please control that natural impulse!

If she is also "cold backed" you may really want to look into saddle fit, chiropractic or physiotherapy, gel pads, etc etc etc.

So I watched some videos on YouTube about the behavior.

Its definitely a bad habit, I messed with her a little bit today to test her. She showed no reaction to me pressing or rubbing right there.

She has a few bad habits, they were just ignored by the past owners.

I found some methods on how to brake this bad habit.

Thank you for the info everyone!

My mare bites the wall if you are putting a turnout rig on her or tightening the girth. She also snaps if you take too long to give her her feed bucket.