# Share your best horse stories!



## MistyMare (Dec 6, 2020)

Hoping this will be a fun thread were we can share our horse stories! I will start with mine-

Well, its a crazy one. We keep our horses at a friends house down the road, and my best friend keeps her horse there too. Hope is her horse, my friend went out of town and I took care of Hope while she was gone. On Friday I got the call, Joelle, the friend we keep our horses with, called us, and said that Hope was stuck "in" the tractor in the garage. They horses broke into the garage were the hay is, and Hope was pushed out though a tiny space between a round bale and the tractor. Probably trying to run out, she slipped and fell on her side, getting her back legs jammed between the bucket and the front wheel. When I got here, the situation was os much wore then I had visualized. 








It was horrifying! We had to keep her from thrashing or she could easily break a leg or seriously injure herself. To make mattes worse, were I am now in the picture, there was an electric motorcycle, which she was leaned up against with the pedal jamming into her neck. When she stated thrashing we were abel to move it out, and to stop her I had to brace her head in my arms. I think I sat there with her for 45 minutes until the vet could come to sedate her. Once she was sedated, we wrapped her back legs in a horse blanket to minimize twitching/thrashing. We were abel to fold her legs in and slowly back the Tractor out. After that he reversed the sedation, and we were abel to get her back on her feet. She was down for abbot 1 and 1/2- 2 hours total. We were so lucky for her to get out with a few superficial injuries. It was nerve racking, and terrifying, but she made it out okay.


----------



## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Oh my gosh that's so scary!! I'm so glad shes okay though!


----------



## MistyMare (Dec 6, 2020)

AbbySmith said:


> Oh my gosh that's so scary!! I'm so glad shes okay though!


Me too! It was terrifying!


----------



## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

What a story! Very scary!


----------



## MistyMare (Dec 6, 2020)

knightrider said:


> What a story! Very scary!


It was scary for sure! 
We were so lucky though. For the situation, to come out of that with only a few minimal scratches, not even any large gashes, is REALLY good! She was so calm though, such a good mare, but, she's still always the one to get injured. Stitches a year ago, stress injuries, swollen eye, now this. I mean Hope, come on mare!


----------



## ~Wildheart~ (Nov 17, 2020)

We went to a local show one time and a friend of mine wanted to ride Apache in it, no big deal the I got along and such. It was his first show and he was acting kinda jittery so my friend took him into the arena to get comfortable with his surroundings and that helped a tad. When time came for their class they went in and everything was going smoothly until everyone got in the line in the middle then he started rearing he went up and down three times and on the 4th went too far up and went over backwards taking my friend with him! Luckily the rider could get out of the saddle before impact but Apache got his legs stuck against the side of the arena wall. Thank god he only kicked once and then froze staring up at everyone like “uhh I saw this going a different way” they had to get the saddle off and then roll him over to get him up. After that the pair walked out and Apache proceeds to spook and rip away and start running around loose! Luckily he was easily caught with a bucket of grain but needless to say that was his first and last show.


----------



## pony7 (Dec 9, 2020)

My horse flipped over in the trailer and was stuck underneath a divider.


----------



## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

pony7 said:


> My horse flipped over in the trailer and was stuck underneath a divider.


This is why I don't like to load horses in the trailer to wait. When I was a child, I was at a horseshow. Somebody had a horse who needed to wait, so they loaded him in the trailer. He started pawing and accidentally pawed open the escape door, which then closed on his foot. He jerked backward and ripped off his hoof. Us kids watched him bleed to death right there in the trailer. It was horrible, and I never load a horse into a trailer until it's time to go.

I've heard pf horses having terrible accidents being tied to a trailer, but I've never seen that, so I can manage that better than loading a horse to just stand there.


----------



## pony7 (Dec 9, 2020)

I had tied my horse never will again. The horse even had on a leather halter. It happened when we were driving.


----------



## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

Gosh, there has been so many! Let me try to just choose one.

Ages ago, I had a 16 hand leopard Appaloosa gelding. I had gotten married and this was one of our first times moving cattle back home for winter pasture. It was several miles over some kind of wild country. 
Anyway, this half blood brahma had dumped out a calf that morning. So we decided just to take it slow, spend all day at it, and hoped the lil guy could keep up. 
We'll we're on the home stretch, on our own land, and he just gave out. Just too much traveling for a lil guy. I went on ahead with the herd, while hubby loaded the calf up on his gelding to take across this deep steep canyon. 
Well, as luck would have it, that brahma noticed her calf was not with her so she's going back for it. It's up to me to get her stopped and turned back around. Now for those that have never tried to stop a brahma, let me tell you, it's not an easy task! First I had to catch her. Brahmas can hit a high trot and go for MILES and MILES and not even be winded. They can kill a good saddle horse. I guess I should explain also, these are range cattle, not small irrigated pasture puffs that go half a mile and they're done. 
So anyway, I finally got in front of her, and then had to get her stopped. It is true, by the way, that when a brahma is mad, their eyes do go red, and her's were. 
She charged me the first time, and I spurred my horse right at her. She stopped. Then here she came again. I tried it again, but she didn't stop anywhere near as quick. I'm beginning to figure out I'm in trouble. Then, here she comes again! She hit my horse sideways, and before I know it, she's up IN the saddle with me eyeball to eyeball! I remember thinking "On crap! I'm dead!"
She went to slide off and she's taking me with her! If she got me off my horse, she would kill me. So I dug my offside spur into my saddle skirts and hung on for dear life. 
Then, all of a sudden I'm clear of her. 
I should mention when we sold this cow, she was close to 1700 pounds. Not a lil heifer.

So, back to the herd we go, hubby had made it across the canyon and dumped the calf off. The cow found it, and all was well. I told him of my adventure. If not for the hair on my shirt jacket, and jeans, you'd never have known it happened at all. But it did.

I have many more! As you guys have figured out, it doesn't take much for me to be telling them!


----------



## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

I will tell you a story from when I was little. I was nine, and I was riding a four year old sorrel mare called Chagrin. She seemed to me tall and fairly narrow still, uphill with a pretty little face. She was a hot horse too, all go and all cow.

My dad and I were pushing the cows up a canyon when a big Hereford bull broke back. Dad was in the front of the herd bending them if I remember correctly, and that bull broke from the back where I was.

I knew better than to lose anything, so that mare and I flew after that bull. She was fast, and I could get just a tiny bit ahead, where he should turn, but no matter my yelling or the mare trying her hardest to beat him, he wouldn’t give.

I would guess we went almost a mile before the mare hit some hidden wire in the sagebrush, and we endoed. I was knocked out, and when I woke up the mare was still knocked out herself. I remember thinking that a horse didn’t weigh as much as I thought it would, because she was laying on top of my leg and hip, and I remember seeing the bull looking straight down at me. He must have been mind blown and stopped to watch the wreck.

I hadn’t been in enough wrecks at that point to wonder if my foot was hung up. When she woke and began struggling to get up I wondered if she would step on me, but she didn’t. I watched in wonder as Chagrin saw that bull and took off after him again, trying to turn him.

I started to cry. I was sure my father was going to murder me. I lost not only the bull, but now my horse and saddle. I’m positive I had a concussion looking back, because I had never been so tired. I thought about sleeping there, but I knew in the tall brush my father wouldn’t be able to find me. I crawled in the direction of the road that went through that area, and soon enough I saw my dad running back on a young filly. He saw me crawling there, and asked if I was okay.

“I lost the bull, my horse, and my saddle,” I cried. He said, “I was yelling at you to let him go. You can’t turn that bull.” “I didn’t hear you.” Seeing him my adrenaline kicked back in and I felt awake, and afraid of the trouble I was in. He took off the direction of the mare, and I sat down on the little two track road.

When he came back he had my mare in tow. The bit had bent back into her mouth, and he muscled it back straight and rebridled her. I wasn’t in trouble, he said the bull had crashed a fence down below, and the mare had stayed on the inside.

It wasn’t until we were done with our job and unsaddling that he realized I had also broken the tree in my saddle.

I was too young to pay any attention to what happened to the bull after that. I did get to see Chagrin grow up though. I only rode her for her fourth year, and moved on to the filly my father had been riding that day. Chagrin was a good mare, blown up for any showing, but a horse you couldn’t wear down at work, and one who refused to be beaten by any cow. She ended up being put down young, because she got arthritis something terrible in her front knees.


----------



## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

That's a heck of a story Knave! Good one!!!


----------



## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

Thanks @Zimalia22! Yours was too. I’ve yet to experience a cow in the saddle with me, and pray I never do. I can only imagine the determination you felt and the sheer panic!


----------



## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

Zimalia22 said:


> I have many more! As you guys have figured out, it doesn't take much for me to be telling them!


@Zimalia22 , could you start your own thread of stories? @Knave, I love your journal and stories. I used to so look forward to @Foxhunter. Now she doesn't get on anymore. These are great stories.


----------

