Category — Horses

I feel sorry for horse owners sometimes.

Several of them seem to live in a near-constant fear of colic happening to their horse, and fair enough too. Colic can be scary when it happens. Suddenly, for no clear reason, the horse which that person loves (or is worth a ridiculous amount of money) is gripped by pain. Pain that they can’t treat, can’t reach and could be caused by any number of things.

The fear of colic gets worse as the day goes on. The pain can keep up all night, even in a ‘good’ colic. The painkillers wear off and the cause is still there, so it comes back a few hours later. I don’t think there’s any other situation in the world where four people will stand around a horse for hours and burst into cheers when it poos. Even if it’s not a very big poo.

And that, my friends, is more or less why I spent an hour with my good work shoes covered in mud at the bottom of a muddy, slippery hill after discovering the electric fence was not as ‘off’ as previously claimed. [Read more →]