For those of you old enough to remember that movie, it was great.

Horses are also great escape artists.  I had my granddaughter’s pony years ago who was a regular Houdini.  Every morning he’d be in the pasture with burrs in his mane and tail.  Now there were no burrs in my pasture, but there were plenty in the vegetable farm next door.  Checked the fence, all was well.  That was until one morning when I called everyone in for breakfast and my Quarter Horse Desert was missing.  Walked out to the back pasture and there was Desert running the fence line screaming for help.  Mane and tail full of burrs.  It seemed he had gotten under the fence with the pony.  The pony was smart enough to get back in but Desert forgot how.  So it seemed that every night Chester the pony had been getting out and spent the night in the neighbors vegetable field and would come back before I was awake.  He was great with the grandchildren, but Chester was a true pony, always up to no good.

However, this great escape is not about loose horses, it’s about us always needing an escape route.

So many times I see people in a dangerous position, with no way of getting away if the situation presented itself.  They’re up against a wall, fence, tree, post, other horses, vehicle, etc. “Danger Will Robinson!”

We’re back to the fight or flight instinct.  If something goes wrong a horse is going to react.  This isn’t an instance of the horse standing there and rationalizing “let’s see. This thing is going to eat me so I must leave.  If I turn right I can get away, but there is a human body I’ll have to step on to get out of here so maybe I should go to the left?  Oops, no there is a wall.  Human body, wall?  Human body, wall?  Maybe I could ask them to move so I can leave?”  Nope, it’s “Oh my gosh, I’m dead meat, I’m out of here!”

The best advise I can give is, always leave yourself room to get out-of-the-way.  And let me add, make sure that way is clear.  When you have a horse that is in a total state of panic, even a lot of room becomes not enough room.

Situations that can get you in trouble –

• Your horse is down in the stall, you go in to see if he’s okay, he panics, struggles to get up, can you scale the divider?
• Your horse is cross tied in the isle way.  Something scares him, he pulls back and breaks the cross ties.  Maybe there is enough room to get out-of-the-way, but are you going to fall over a tack trunk, the milk crate you were standing on to pull his mane, the dog that was sleeping by your feet?
• Your horse panics in the trailer.  Are you caught against the wall, another horse?  If he goes down, where do you go.
• You’ve got your horse tied to the fence, you’re cleaning his feet, something spooks him, he body slams you into the fence.  Your back now looks like a waffle cone or your picking splinters out for weeks, if you’re lucky.

Before you do the simplest things, check for the exit signs, and make sure that nothing is in your way.

Now that’s a “Great Escape.”