When I look at the photo the horses head begs to come out of the photo. It's clearly the main focus and why you chose a close-up shot to begin with. As you and others have mentioned, there's a headless horse in the background, so obviously your framing wasn't ideal. Blurring the background probably did help to deemphasize the distracting background.
I threw your photo in Photoshop to see what I would do to the photo if it were mine. The very first thing I did was add a vignette (I'm on a vignette kick lately). I did it the quick and dirty way by just burning the corners. Next I whipped out the dodge tool. I focused on the head, since that's what needs to stand out. I brightened the stripe down her nose and touched on the sunlight on her eyelids and nostrils. It still seemed a little dark, so I did a couple more passovers of the whole head with the dodge tool. I burnt the eyes to make them blacker and make them stand out.
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