A couple of days ago, we had the strangest thing happen with a mare and I've had horses all my life.
The eleven year old QH mare was grazing, with an unrelated yearling QH filly, in the paddock where she has lived on and off for most of her last six years. They were down towards the back of the 200 acre paddock. I had just brought home a four year old gelding. He is kept in the paddock when he is not working elsewhere. It was about 3pm. The gelding walked down to where the others were - he did not gallop madly, screaming his head off. He was about 100m off them when the mare suddenly saw him......she took off like she had seen the Baskerville hounds coming, somersaulted over a wire and steel peg fence, landed on her back, got up and took off flat gallop. She was then into a very large paddock and galloped for a couple of miles before we were able to get out along a road and cut in front of her on motorbikes. The mare ran straight to the bikes for protection and was still petrified, shaking, spinning around, a lather of sweat. Her head is badly cut about and one back fetlock - it could easily have been fatal. She didnt want to go back towards where she saw "the monster" and it took an hour or so to calm her down and lead her home, propping and shying at anything and everything. The yearling filly and the gelding were quietly grazing when we returned - the filly hadn't a clue what had happened at all. This mare has been about and is generally bombproof, goes anywhere, loads on anything, kids can doubledink on her - she's lived in town, under the flightpath at the airport. Her eyes seem perfectly normal. She ignored the gelding when we got back, not recognising him as the source of the problem - she knows him well - he is HER SON, for goodness sake!!!! I put her in the stable and next morning she was still reluctant to leave its safety. Yesterday we ended up trucking her to our other place 2 hours away (the transport was going over to collect cattle anyway) and she was turned out there with some other mares, cool and calm, never turned a hair. Has anyone ever seen anything like that before???? I know it was wrong to turn the gelding out cold- I shouldve waited until the others came up and checked him out, but its not as though he's a strange horse. Also, the paddock is chock full of kangaroos and the odd emu, a couple of calves and goodness knows what else - it's not as though the horses are its only inhabitants. Straaaange.....
The eleven year old QH mare was grazing, with an unrelated yearling QH filly, in the paddock where she has lived on and off for most of her last six years. They were down towards the back of the 200 acre paddock. I had just brought home a four year old gelding. He is kept in the paddock when he is not working elsewhere. It was about 3pm. The gelding walked down to where the others were - he did not gallop madly, screaming his head off. He was about 100m off them when the mare suddenly saw him......she took off like she had seen the Baskerville hounds coming, somersaulted over a wire and steel peg fence, landed on her back, got up and took off flat gallop. She was then into a very large paddock and galloped for a couple of miles before we were able to get out along a road and cut in front of her on motorbikes. The mare ran straight to the bikes for protection and was still petrified, shaking, spinning around, a lather of sweat. Her head is badly cut about and one back fetlock - it could easily have been fatal. She didnt want to go back towards where she saw "the monster" and it took an hour or so to calm her down and lead her home, propping and shying at anything and everything. The yearling filly and the gelding were quietly grazing when we returned - the filly hadn't a clue what had happened at all. This mare has been about and is generally bombproof, goes anywhere, loads on anything, kids can doubledink on her - she's lived in town, under the flightpath at the airport. Her eyes seem perfectly normal. She ignored the gelding when we got back, not recognising him as the source of the problem - she knows him well - he is HER SON, for goodness sake!!!! I put her in the stable and next morning she was still reluctant to leave its safety. Yesterday we ended up trucking her to our other place 2 hours away (the transport was going over to collect cattle anyway) and she was turned out there with some other mares, cool and calm, never turned a hair. Has anyone ever seen anything like that before???? I know it was wrong to turn the gelding out cold- I shouldve waited until the others came up and checked him out, but its not as though he's a strange horse. Also, the paddock is chock full of kangaroos and the odd emu, a couple of calves and goodness knows what else - it's not as though the horses are its only inhabitants. Straaaange.....
