Funny Horse Stories

awatkins

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Because we have several horse writers and fans here, I thought it might be fun to share some funny horse stories. I'll start. :D

We own several acres of nice pasture land and for years have let our neighbor use the property for his horses. We love them and enjoy feeding them treats, admiring their foals, and taking tons of pictures of them. One time there was a young gelding in the group who was a bit shy, so my husband decided to tempt him to come closer by offering some fresh carrots.

It took a little time and much coaxing, but finally the horse cautiously got close enough so he could reach the carrots. My husband leaned over the electric fence, carrots in hand, and stretched toward the horse. The horse leaned down, touched his nose to the carrots, and....

The sun had gone down so it was almost dark. Just dark enough for me to see the sparks fly when the pressure of the horse's nose pushed my husband's arm downward and against the electric wire. The horse screamed and reared up, my husband screamed, carrots went flying, and I nearly fell on the ground laughing. I don't know who was more startled, the horse or my husband. :ROFL:

That poor horse! I've always wondered what he thought happened. All he knew was that when he touched the carrots, he got the jolt of his life. I'm not lying when I say sparks flew--they literally popped off his nose and my husband's hand. I bet that horse never ate carrots again.
 

MacAllister

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I have a big silly gelding who went investigating a sack full of carrots I'd set down, while I did some other task.

He nosed around the sack (one of those white, plastic-weave, feed bags) grabbed it with his teeth and picked it up. Then he panicked, and tried to run away from the flopping, crackling plastic bag--carrots flying in every direction.

He did the high-speed back-up, whirl and bolt...but he didn't drop the bag. So he'd try to evade it even harder--and ran even faster. Finally, he dropped the thing.

He settled down, several yards away. Looking at the bag. Which he went to investigate for carrots, because there were a few left in the bottom of the sack. After snuffling around, he picked up the sack in his teeth, and perfomed the whole routing again.

I couldn't believe it. I stood there watching, just shaking my head.
 

DaveKuzminski

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Not exactly a horse story, but here goes:

Years ago when one of my sisters was young, she once got up in the middle of the night, walked over to her rocking horse, slapped it, and said, "That's for sticking your tongue out at me." before returning to her bed. My parents dearly loved telling that story.

I forgot to mention before that she now owns several horses. I don't believe she slaps any of them for sticking out their tongues. :)
 
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GHF65

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We own Peck's Bad Horse. Chaos is his middle name. "Rat 'Chaos' Friedman". I've been in my truck driving to the barn and met him coming down the road in the opposite direction. He's spent days removing all of the bolts from the gutter on the shedrow barn at one farm. I've gotten daily calls from one farm manager that always started with, "You have GOT to get over here and see what your horse is doing!" He's taken apart a western saddle and buried the pieces in the sand footing of the arena before he was caught. He's found a whip and gotten the rest of the horses running in circles until they were exhausted. He's spent an hour or so working his way into the middle of a coil of rusty barbed wire and backing out again, over and over and over . . .

Most recently he developed a grudge against a horse in the neighboring paddock. During the night (his most creative time) he took down the fence between them, crossed it, beat the bejeezus out of his erstwhile enemy, then quietly crossed back into his own paddock, where he was found grazing peacefully the next morning. All in a night's work for our boy.:hat:

I've got a rider on my insurance policy that names him specifically with a disclaimer for whatever he might do that we haven't thought of a way to prevent.

I could go on, but I get nervous when I think for too long about what he might be doing while I'm typing. I've just started sleeping through the night again since my daughter moved him a state away. Most folks dread the midnight phone call because they fear for the health of elderly relatives and errant children. I jump out of bed and start pulling my boots on before I've got the phone off the cradle because I know I'm going to hear, "Wait'll you see what he's done this time!"

And he's only one of seven. Is it any wonder I tend to hunker in the corner humming show tunes and making farm animals out of duct tape and baling twine? :e2paperba
 
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Paint

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My quarter horse did not know he was gelded. One day he was strutting in front of my neighbor's mare (with my kid sister on his back) showing off for all he was worth, the tossing head, the prancing, low male nickers and snorts. Stepped into a gopher hole and fell out flat on my sister. He was much quieter when she got going again...

Same horse knew when it thunderstormed the electric fence would go down. After a storm he would approach the fence slowly feeling for vibrations on his nose hairs. If he didn't feel any he would push down the fence and go check out the neighborhood.
Taurus knew how low the barn door was and took great delight in skinning my then husband off at a run. I got a laugh at him sitting in the muck. I figured it was his fault, he built the barn and cut it so low. No wonder he didn't like me much.
 

kmm8n

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My sister is a horse trainer and has her own barn. This is one of her recent stories:


AT 4:00 am, she walked down the aisle of the barn and noticed the motion sensor light on outside. "Curious," she thought, "must be a deer." As she continued through the dark barn, she heard the distinct sounds of someone enjoying an early breakfast. She paused to listen and the munching stopped. When she moved again, the eating started once more. She flipped on the lights and turned the corner to find Hippo, a spotted pony, in the grain bin. He stopped eating, I guess hoping she wouldn't notice him.

He was supposed to be outside, but he got out of his pen, slipped the bar off the door, and decided to help himself to a midnight snack.
 

GHF65

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Years ago my daughter had an Appy mare who learned very quickly to unlatch her stall door. She'd use her tongue between the upper door and the frame to pop the hook out of the eye bolt, then lift the latch on the outside of the lower door with her lips. I arrived at the barn one morning to find her standing in the doorway watching the sun rise. The piles of manure in front of each horse's stall suggested that she'd made the rounds during the night. When I said, "Missy! Where are you supposed to be?" she ran right back into her stall and stood as if nothing had happened.

My QH mare loved to work and became adept at unhooking the crossties from her halter. I'd go to the tack room to get her bridle, and return to find the crossties empty and my mare standing next to the gate to the ring waiting for me.

My Paint gelding--whose mother is also mine, so I've had him since birth--has a big sense of the comedic. He loved to steal my daughter's jacket from where she'd hang it on the fence while she was riding. He'd take off across the pasture with it, drop it, and stomp it to death, laughing all the while. She'd get angry and run after him. One day he undid himself by not noticing how muddy the ground was. He took off and BOOM! Down he went on his side. He got up, swung around and stared at her as if to say, "How did you DO that?" I used that against him later when he learned he could break away on the longe because I wasn't strong enough to stop him. At first I fought him by running the line up over my shoulder so I could put my whole back into it. That just escalated the battle. So, opting for finesse, the next time I just let go of the line and let him run. There was no place for him to go in the ring, so he just trotted around laughing . . . until he stepped on the end of the longe line and cut his nose with the chain I had wrapped around the noseband of his halter. Again, he attributed my magic to his pain and was really wary for a while. A couple more similar incidents solved the longe problem, so he changed his tactics and got his jollies breaking away on the lead. I used the same plan. Just let go. He'd run and run in circles around the barnyard until eventually the rope would get wound around a fence post and he'd find himself tied. Then he'd give me the plaintive, "Mooooommmmyyyyy! I'm stuck!". I'd unhook him, and he'd treat me with total awe for a few days. What a hoot! Four years later he's a great dressage horse, an amazing jumper and a perfect gentleman . . . most of the time.

If there's one thing that can be said for all horses it's that NOTHING can ever be said for ALL horses that won't be disproved by at least half of them.
 

Leva

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I think I've mentioned my ornery old mare, who just wasn't afraid of much. Stray dogs, and dog packs, are a problem in my area -- but not something I really worried about when I was riding her.

One time we were riding through a pack of little yap dogs and she stopped dead and started pawing. Refused to walk forward. Her ears were pinned flat and her eyes were wide and she was threatening to rear. I thought she'd stepped on something like a nail, so I dismounted in a hurry, right into the pack of yappy little dogs that had come out of a mobile home by the road. Wasn't worried about getting bit. Most of them were chihauha mixes.

One of them was firmly attached to her splint boot, growling and chewing away, trying to have some horse for lunch. I'm not sure what type of dog it was -- it looked like a rat with a mohawk, except I've seen bigger rats. Desi couldn't kick him without kicking herself in the process.

I detached the dog -- that wasn't as easy as it sounds -- calmed my horse, and carried the dog (still growling) wrapped in my jacket up to the owner's front door and suggested that the next time the dog attacked my horse (laughing while I said it) I'd let my horse eat him. The owner was NOT amused, but I noted she kept her gate closed after that.

Leva
 

GHF65

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What a hoot! I can just picture the little turdling clamped fast to that splint boot. Great story!