I had a very bad surprise at the barn yesterday morning and I am still perplexed over the whole thing. When I arrived at the barn in the morning, I walked down the barn aisle to start bringing the horses out (I always start with Lucy, of course!) and about halfway there, I realized her stall door was wide open.
Like, WIDE OPEN.
To make matters worse, I didn't see the horse in her stall at first. I started running and she heard me barreling down the barn aisle and stuck her head out like, "oh, hi mom!". I stood there and took it all in: the horse still standing politely in her stall waiting to be turned out, the door completely open, the chest guard not up at all, and all of the other horses getting very impatient about going outside.
My barn is right off of a highway that is two lanes and has heavy traffic, especially in the mornings. I really cannot believe my very curious and very cheeky mare didn't waltz herself right out of her stall, down the aisle, out into the driveway, down to the highway, in front of an 18 wheeler, or maybe back in the 60 acres of property that the barn has where hunters like to trespass and shoot big brown things (deer? horse? really, what's the difference?!).
Nope, she stood there and munched her breakfast hay quietly and then happily went outside when I put her halter on and took her out.
My barn owner feeds breakfast in the mornings and she didn't think she had left her door open, but the other possibility is even scarier: that someone deliberately went in and opened her door. I am not sure which option to hope for...I just hope it was a freak thing and it will never happen again. I certainly can't be locking her stall in case she needs to get out quickly (like in the case of a barn fire, god forbid).
Holy smoke! It was scary just to read about it. Lucy doesn't know how lucky she is ... wow. Is there no gate between the barn and the road?
ReplyDeleteUm...yikes. Maybe you can at least put her stall guard up all the time incase the door does open?
ReplyDeleteI always worry about Flint getting out and going past the girls to the road... but that rarely happens that he gets past them! But, just in case... we have a concrete cattle gap. It would be nothing for him to jump it but it is a little extra security.
ReplyDeleteSo glad she was still in there being a good pony!
That is bad! Is there any way she could have opened the door herself? I'm guessing not, 'cause if she did, she would have left.
ReplyDeleteNow that's scary! Good thing she was a good girl and stayed put.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that your barn owner accidently didn't close the door properly? I don't know how your stalls work but maybe she didn't latch it properly and Lucy managed to bump into it and open it.
ReplyDeleteThat would be so terrifying. That's wherre a front gate or even a cattle guard is helpful, to keep the horses from wandering out to the road.
Scary!!! We are not right by a highway, but by an extremely busy road that cars like to fly down. The scariest day ever was when two of our geldings made an escape from their pasture and took off into the road. We caught them without injury to them or the drivers, but I was holding my breath the whole time!
ReplyDeleteI wonder what really happened with her door...
Glad Lucy was okay! I understand completely, when I go out to the paddocks every morning I do a head count..and if that number is wrong I completely go into panic mode. Would if be possible for the barn owner to maybe put up a gate going into the barn area, so if the horses were to get out of their stalls at night they would not hit the highway area?
ReplyDeleteAhhh!!! So glad it was okay. Hopefully a freak occurrence.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, I would have had a heart-attack.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that maybe she was like rubbing her head on the door and somehow unlatched it and it was only open a little, so she didn't notice it and went back to eating and it opened more and she just didn't notice. I hope that you find out how it happened. Glad Lucy is okay.
Neighgirl
I know I closed her stall door the night before. I don't think she could have opened it, unless it was left unlatched. In theory she could have slid it open but if it was latched, there would be no way she could open it.
ReplyDeleteThe fields are unfenced in the front of the property so even if there was a gate across the driveway, the horse could go around it and through the fields to get out the front.
I've had something like that happen, I got back from a horse show to find Prince's stall empty. Talk about an instant panic attack!!! In the end I found him in a different horse's stall (the person feeding was new and confused him for another horse when she brought him in).
ReplyDeleteIt does happen that people forget to properly latch their stalls, I can say this because I accidentally let Prince out once when I failed to latch his stall correctly. And one year at a horse show we arrived to find a random horse munching on our hay. The horse had apparently slide it's door open since its stall wasn't latched right either. This was at the Kentucky Horse Park so the people who own that horse are realllyyyyy lucky that horse stuck around instead of taking off across the cross country fields!
Scary!! Glad everything is ok. Hopefully it was just an oversight somewhere and won't happen again.
ReplyDeleteKate, I put a link to your blog on my post today - camera stuff.
ReplyDeleteCrap!! Maybe you should thank your LUCY star, that she didn't walk out and stayed put like a smart Pony. Very scary stuff. I'm hoping it was simple BO error and nothing else.
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