Sorry, I’ve been sick.

Did you ever spin a wheel at a county fair or anywhere for that matter? You give it a good send off and wait to see where it is going to land. Sometimes you watch that happen with horses.

The other day that happened with one of the horses here. He was locked in a 12 X 24 pen, he had finished eating and was waiting while his friend finished his breakfast. The dogs next door decided to attack the property line fence (which was way to close for his comfort). They do this just about every day to encourage my dogs to run the fence line proclaiming who is the more vicious dogs. Usually the horse is not in the pen when they do this, and doesn’t care. I yell and everyone just walks away until the next day. Dumb game, but they are all bored. Well this horse panicked and started spinning around in one direction and then another trying to find away out of the enclosure. Luckily running through the boards never crossed his mind, thank God. Kind of reminded me of one of those wheels at the fair. Didn’t know where he was going to stop. The other good thing is that I wasn’t in the pen with him. He’s the one that doesn’t see well, but it was light out, he saw the fence.

Were you ever feeding and something spooked your horse and they just spun out? Most times if they know you are there, they will go in the other direction. I find that most horses will go around you if they have the presence of mind, but I still don’t trust them. Then there are those who really don’t care what is in the way. I’ve known way too many horses that just walked, or ran, right over people.

All this just to say that you must always stay alert and give yourselves a way out. Watch your horse when you are near them. Watch body language. Listen for sounds that may startle your horse. You just never know when that wheel will land on you.

Around and round she goes, where she’ll stop, nobody knows.