What are your most enjoyable/unpleasant experiences involving horses?

*You’re SO clever… Random? Well butter my muffin this is a GREAT question!

Teeth… Horses teeth disturbe me. So although I like looking at them, much like everything else, they are rather plesant…

Until of course they open their mouths, then, not so much.

*Smiles.

My daughter was bitten on the lip by a horse when she (daughter) was a riding camp at a near-by college during the summer.

She refused to come home and now has a sweet little scar on her upper lip.

I never did get the story clear about what she, at 13, and that horse were doing.

Some friends an I were “protesting” a KKK rally being held at the capitol building in Austin, TX. It really wasn’t even a protest, just a counter presence. It wasn’t a big event, maybe 30 KKK and several hundred people in the crowd, some KKK supporters, but mostly protestors, but things got a little heated in the crowd at some point, as you might imagine, and I’m not sure even exactly what happened but the next thing I knew, people were running all over the place and a group of us were essentially being “herded” like cattle by the mounted police. I’m only 5’4’ and it was extremely intimidating, uncomfortable and actually kind of scary to find myself trapped and on the move between two big horses with police a top them, with nowhere to go but where they want you to go. I still remember how big those horses were and they seemed like they were just inches from me on either side. The cops’ boots and stirrup hardware seemed right up at my ears. That was pretty unpleasant.

Enjoyable: riding along the Chicago lake front; embarrassing: short stop and suddenly finding myself looking up into the face of the horse. (the instructor was furious; I thought it was funny.)
Realizing I had never been in control of a horse, many years later, I reluctantly went on one of those nose to butt trail rides in Yosemite Valley with my kids. I was towards the end of the line of non-horse riders and their horses. My horse stumbled in a gully and threw his head back, smashing me in the face, I pulled him up while i got my bearings. The guide said,“He won’t stop. He’ll follow the other horses.” But I held the horse (or perhaps he let me.) Triumphant: When I was ready, we went on. Head held high and in control of my horse!

Had been driving most of the night. At around 2 am, decided to pull over to a rest stop to catch a few zzzzzzz’s. Had just gotten comfortable in my car, when a truck pulling a trailer full of horses, stopped and parked next to my car. Four horses were exited from the trailer. All horses had on horse shoes and all decided to take a leak at the same time. The sounds were unbelievable, not to mention the smells.

@Sunny2 I guess horses are more like people than we thought?

“He won’t stop. He’ll follow the other horses.”

I’ve been a horse person, rider, owner, lover, for my entire life.

Top 3 best experiences:

Riding on the logging trails in the Sierras where I live, beautiful mountain trails.

Galloping bareback, hair flying and feeling the extreme high of my skill and connection to my animal.

Lounging around on a blanket reading on a sunny afternoon with my horse standing over me, making shade and the geese and my cat vying for blanket space. :-)

Top 3 worst experiences:

Being mowed down by a renegade pony at age 11 and nearly breaking my leg

Taking a bad spill and dislocating my shoulder which had to be surgically pinned

Being shot at by a bow hunter on trail during deer hunting season whew, scary!

I won a bit of money betting on a horse called Red Alligator and then on Red Rum. Worst experience was pony trekking when I was about ten years old and the horse bolted for home at the end of the trek completely out of control. I barely managed to stay on board.

We had a golf cart we used to drive around the property when I was a teen. We had recently bought a horse that needed to be rebroken. It chased me on the golf cart on my way home from feeding the barn cats (I know) and and the horse. Then it blocked me at the gate. I was terrified – I didn’t think I would ever through that gate.

Riding bareback through the woods.
Falling off on purpose into the creek…but having the horse step on my hand, pining me under wasn’t in the plan! Fortunately she moved!

Also, one time in a fit of adolescent energy I charged my horse up a hill…then realized I was about to hit a low hanging branch! A BIG one! I threw my self to the side as far down as I could, but it still scraped my back up something awful.

I was born and raised in rural east England and I spent most of my childhood in the company of horses. For the most part, I liked horses better than people.

Worst experience was when the horse I was riding got spooked by some idiot on a motorbike, and she took off across a field. It took me about a quarter of a mile to stop her.

Another time I fell at a jump and hurt my hip. Nothing broken, and I didn’t think much of it at the time, but my hip wasn’t right for several years after that.

Best memory is laying on her back, belly down, facing backward, and propping a book on her butt and reading while she grazed. Worst memory, my parents making me sell her.

@syz That is heartbreaking and beautiful to me… I am so sorry. ♥

@syz YES! I almost put that down as my answer! Lying on that broad, warm, calm back reading a book!

Around here if you see horse poop the police have been there.

I don’t have much experience with horses, but my sister had a retired thoroughbred racehorse for several years. That was some nice animal. BIG and gentle.

BEST:
Winning the Mo state grand championship, and
My brother winning the reserve grand Champion
while we were both ridding my horse

WORST:
My Dad selling my horse.

Getting first place in a Horsemanship display. OK. I was the only entry, but still!!

When I was little, my parents used to take me and my siblings to the races in the evenings, after my parents closed their small grocery store. I remember it fondly, because we always went in the fall when it was cold, and we ate burgers and french fries in the stands. My brothers and I would bet against each other about which horse would win. I always had a knack for picking the winner. I love horses. I think they are one of nature’s most perfectly designed creatures, especially stallions.

My worse experience happened when I was small too. I was about 10, and we were riding on horses along a trail in the Rocky Mountains. It was a tour guide thing, and they gave me an “old docile horse” to ride on, thinking it would be safer for a little kid. Wrong. As we rounded a trail along a rocky cliff, the horse started to buck wildly. Luckily for me, I hung on for dear life and stayed on. Had I let go, I would have been bucked off the cliff! Lol.

I wanted a horse most of my childhood. I even went to far as to tell my parents “If I can’t have a horse for Christmas, I don’t want anything”. Nothing is what I got that year, but I did get a lot of birthday presents the next month. My father went so far as to paint a bicycle for me the color of a Palomino, complete with white mane and tail.

I finally bought a pony, when I received my first paycheck from my first job. A few weeks later, I sold the horse back to the previous owners, and bought a car.

Galloping across a field on a sunny day is one of the best feelings ever.

The scariest moment I have had with a horse was when I was mucking out my friend’s horse as she had gone away and the bad tempered bastard had me pinned against the stable wall. I have never been so scared of an animal in my life.

Scary @Leanne1986!! They’re freakin’ huge!

Once my friend and I were riding our horses across a bridge. Two cars were coming, in opposite directions. They passed us at the same time. The one coming up behind us didn’t move over or take any evasive action at all…..he passed really, really close to us. It spooked our horses. We both jumped off to hold the horses down and calm them down, then we walked them, rather than riding them, across the rest of the bridge. Best part? There was a cop who saw the whole thing and he pulled the guy over!!! As we were passing them we heard the cop say, “I don’t know where you’re from but horses still have the right of way in Kansas.” YAY for the cop!

@Leanne1986

Oh yeah, that happened to me too, being charged by a food obsessive mare that belonged to a friend while I was horse sitting a few years ago. She was the dominant mare and just came plowing through the gate and pinned me between the pipe gate and the wall of the barn. She was a scary one! Not to mention I could have lain in that barn dead for days before anyone found me. lol

O! Is that what happened to your face @Coloma?!

@Dutchess_III

I forgot about my broken nose, when a horse slammed me in the face tossing his head while bridleing him. Yeah, the duck bill hides my slightly crooked nose. lol

: ) Hugs, girl!