An experience I could have lived without!

Any one else had the experience of trying to catch a 17hh horse at 11pm who is in a blind panic? Without a torch. I can now truthfully say I have.

Someone who lives very close by decided to set fireworks off tonight. Luckily I thought to check on the horses when I realised (I'm deaf to fireworks. I was at the back of the house and they don't bother the dogs so I didn't realise). Unfortunately I was too late and Copey had already started to panic. Captain was flying about as well but he was just going because Copey was. It took me nearly half an hour to catch him. He just wasnt thinking . I almost got run over by him! Thankfully Amber and Captain dont care about fireworks and I was able to turn Amber out with Captain and force Copey into a stable and give him some calming stuff. It's brilliant that Amber can practically read my mind because my hands were busy holding onto Copey. My sister tried to help but she was so scared of Copey that she was actually making him worse.

I don't think he's hurt himself but the light in his stable is broken and I couldnt see much by the light of my phone. We're very lucky he didn't go through the fence!

I don't mind the person setting the fireworks off but a warning would have been nice. That would have given me the chance to stuff him with drugs and stable him from the start.

Now the fireworks have stopped and he's settled to eating hay. Hes supposed to be on a diet and Amber's getting extra to help her gain weight. He's in heaven now

all I have to say is :yikes::yikes::yikes:

glad to hear it all worked out--what a scary experience!

Glad you didn't end up with a foot like Staci's! And that Copey's fine.

Aw jeez, glad everything ended up okay. There's nothing that scares me worse than a panicked horse I don't think!

When the cows get out I just bring the feed bucket around and tell them to get their sorry butts home

Oh man, sorry you guys had to go through that. That would be really scary. I'm glad he's okay.

The closest thing I ever had like that was the unexpected bull in our garage at 1 am. :rofl1:

Thanks Bax!

Renee I didn't even think about anything like that until after the whole thing was over! I was more concerned about him hurting himself than about myself!

He's quite a nervy horse anyway so I've seen him panic before but because these fireworks were now stop he wasn't even getting the chance to calm down between each firework.

I don't think he would have paid much attention to food lol. Usually if he even thinks I have food he's all over me but last night was no go. It did get Captain to settle though when I tossed him some food so at least there wasn't two of them charging around. I ended up just opening the gate into the yard, waiting for him to charge through and then grabbing him as he slowed to come through the gate.

A bull would have been worse Romy! At least I knew Copey! Plus there are a few jersey bulls around here and I like to keep as far away as humanly possible from them!

A panicked horse would be worse, trust me! Diego's a bull, but he's halter trained and pretty gentle. We just startled each other and he ripped my license plate off when he sat on the hood of my car. :rofl1: They were all out of the pasture and it was a pain rounding them up, but not scary. We weren't worried about them hurting themselves or us.

He's a hereford though. Jersey bulls are evil!!! I don't blame you one bit for staying far away from them.

How Scary! And yes Ill take a bull over a horse rampaging any day well most at lest there was this Jersey bull I wouldnt get with in 100 yards of he was the Devil himself! Glad you and he are ok!

Glad everyone's okay! Chance was good at panicking at things but luckily Sparky is one of those I've-seen-it-all-and-I-don't-give-a... so Chance would run to hide behind him.

oh if it was a bull I knew was gentle that wouldn't be so bad! I thought you meant some random bull just wandered into your garage LOL. Yes I'm convinced ALL Jersey bulls are evil. I've yet to met a nice one!

Snark Copey and Captain are generally like that but last night Captain just decided that he just had to make life difficult. I knew he wasn't really scared when he came to check me for treats lol. It's good that Amber and Captain are both angels because there are 2 useable stables and one was already occupied by Tiger. I could probably have squeezed Amber into the foaling stable which is where hay and spare bedding is kept but I doubt there would have been much hay left this morning!

I found the bulls (Angus) to be a lot more reasonable than Charley's bedamned, hugeass whiteface cows. The bulls -- once they got over the yearling stage -- pretty much did whatever I told them to do. OJ would herd the yearlings up for me, lol. The Angus cows weren't bad either, even if some of them were escape artists, but it was usually the whitefaces who tore down the fence.

I let the Filas handle the whiteface cows. Buffy and Kharma bit the hell out of a couple of 'em and they richly deserved it. They'd charge you, fully intending to run you down. They tended to leave their calves someplace, wander off, and forget where they left them.