horses

[TherryChicken]

Ok so on feb 2 I took my 10 year old neice out to ride one of our horses. My gelding was being a turd and wouldn't let me catch him. To I caught my mom's 15hh paint mare. We brushed her down, saddled her up, and I did something before I was going to help my neice up. Well all of a sudden my mare jerks and looks behind her. She starts jerking pulling and moving our explorer (she was tied to the car as anywhere else there was barbed wire.) Well then she acted like she was so terrified that she streatched and just dropped to her side. Her eyes were rolled downwards and you only saw half an inch to a quarter of an inch of her blue eyes. I couldn't loosen the lead or remove it due to her jerking it so tight. I tried everything (while keeping my neice back away from her) to loosen the lead. Well she tried getting up once when I loosened the saddle and rocked her, but couldn't. I had called my mom to have her rush there to help be, but thank god we were lucky. The owners of the property and a man who is like family to them were there. They ran over to help me get her lead loose so she could get up. They got it loose, I had to leads on and one patted her side near her withers and the friend who's like family grabed one lead, I got the other and we pulled. She got up, eyes so wide, breathing heavy, but completely ok. While waiting for my mom to arive she looked at the place again and spooked a little again, but not nearly as bad.
while she was down, she was as still as can be, looked petrified, and breathing heavily. My gelding in the pasture was freaking out in the process. We put her back in the pasture after checking her and calming her down. When that happened she stared hard at the area along with my gelding, but my gelding was snorting (name snorty shorty, snorts when afraid). He kept right at her side and pushed her away from that area. Something really spooked her.
I do know I should of tied it where she could get loose, but since we've had her, over a year, we have never seen her spook at anything. Uncomfortable at a bull, but not spook. Please do not bash, I am going to learn to do the releaseable knott incase something like this happens again. A learned mistake, bad one, but a learned one.
my question is, has this ever happened with one of yours?

 

[HorseSlave]

Now might be a good time to see a vet. Blood work would be the first thing to do. In the mean time, don't ride her. You can still do your usual exercises with her, but absolutely NO riding until you get bloodwork done. Hopefully it's just an isolated incident related to pressure from the halter. BUT, there are a couple of very serious metabolic disorders that can cause a similar reaction without warning. And you don't want to be riding along and end up under her next time.

Yes, the blood work will be costly (but so are injuries to you), one clinic charged $1000+ for a complete work up, but look around at universities, they are often less expensive, and you have the benefit of some world class DVMs looking it over.

Oh, and did I mention, NO riding in the mean time? Seriously. None.

 

[TherryChicken]

Thank you very much for being concered, but she's healthy beyond being a little thin (came from a bad situation). She seen a vet not long ago, everything turned out fine beyond being very wormy and a clogged tear duct. There was something in the back pasture where other people lived that was scaring her badly. My gelding wouldn't let her go in that direction. I am almost thinking that they gotten a bull or something. However it's still a big mystery as to what had spooked her so bad. Today I checked on her while feeding and she was her normal self, however my gelding was still looking in that direction.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Horses are weird and spook at things we may not even notice. It could have been the car, or a weird shadow, or the sound of her own breath.

My family found out the hard way to be extremely careful about tying your horse to things without thinking hard about what you are tying them to. My horse spooked and injured herself so badly she had to be put don that same day. It was purely an accident, but we learned a very tough lesson.

Definitely learn and practice the quick release knot (The proper way, not the incorrect way I've been seeing more and more. The knot should not tighten if the animal pulls back.)

Also consider finding a new place to tie your horses. A proper place to tie a horse should be incredibly sturdy. If you are going to tie to a fence, never tie to the boards. Always tie to a post. Also maybe think about working away from barbed wire (And if the place you keep them uses barbed wire for fencing, it may be time to find a new place to keep your horses.) I've seen terrible injuries from barbed wire. It only takes one second and a serious enough injury to cause the horse to be lame for the rest of its life!

You could have blood work done, and you should be able to have it done for a little over a hundred dollars. Bloodwork for over a $1000 must have been very specialized or needed to be rushed. The hospital here doesn't charge that much for a full blood and chem panel. If you are not going to have blood work done, just keep a close eye on her. I also suggest checking her tack very closely to make sure nothing was hurting her. If she had a bit in her mouth, check the bit and check her mouth. Remember, a horse should never be tied to anything by the reins (Not sure if that was done, but just a friendly reminder)

A few other safety tidbits is make sure your niece wears a helmet when she rides. Its also usually a good idea to walk the horse around a bit by leading on the ground after saddling. I've been able to detect things like lameness or wonky attitudes that way before getting on the horse's back. I was thrown off too many times in my younger days by just jumping on without walking them around first.

I've been working around horses since I was about 6 and when we got our first horse, we learned a lot of things the hard way. So I'd be happy to help you out with any other questions you may have to save people from having to go through the same things we did! All in all, we were pretty lucky all those years, and now that I am older I have researched and worked with trainers and have relearned things in a more proper way. My family has definitely come a long way in regards to working in a safer manner around horses!

 

[TherryChicken]

Yeah, I am going to look it up on youtube and practice. The thing is shes usually very calm and not fearful, hasn't spook nearly that bad before. As for blood work she will not go into our trailer due to it being too narrow Nd we are working on buying a stock trailer. The posts we usually tie them on was broken, so we have been tying them to the car. We also don't use bits, we use hackamores or halter and leads.
just what I don't understand is that whatever it was, petrified her. She layed so still almost likempretending she was dead, but breathing heavy. It's scared her so bad. I didn't even get time to walk her around, she dropped before I even got back to her.

 

[Eggsoteric]

Did she happen to do this after you tightented the girth? Did she look as though she couldn't catch her breath? Did she stretch out her front legs and then go down? Sounds to me like she went what I refer to as girthbound. There's a nerve that runs in the girth area; hit this nerve just right and you can literally knock the breath out of them. It's a good idea to tighten the girth slowly and stretch the legs forward as you're tightening. If it happens again, you'll want to try to loosen the girth right away.

 

[TherryChicken]

Very similar yes, but I know for a face it wasn't that as my past gelding always did that. She spooked at something then was jerking hard to try to get away, then it's like she became petrified and realized she couldn't get away and was trying so hard that she was doing that streatching. Then like she knew she couldn't get out and like froze in fear and dropped down. I will deff try doing the girth diff, but I was doing it slowly and she was fine till something startled her in the pasture behind them.