Whats the biggest mistake you made on/around horses?

I did a really stupid thing once :o

Someone had come off their horse on the moor and was taken to hospital, apparently the horse had bolted and was now loose with all its tack on. The police phoned me and asked if I could help (I worked for the police at the time). So I grabbed a bucket of food and met the local copper and we went off in search of this horse.

We found it.... it had joined a group of Exmoor ponies ;) I was rattling the bucket, calling "dinner" (LOL) but I couldn't catch the bloody thing. In the end we gave up, copper drove me back to my car and he went off in another direction.

Whilst I was driving back home - there was the horse right beside the road. I stopped my car, rattled the bucket and caught the horse.

Hmmmmm - now what shall I do then? (no mobile signal here either). So, (and this is the really stupid bit) I decided to get on the horse and ride it back to my stables and somehow get back to my car.

I got on the horse and off we set - within minutes the blasted thing bolted with me along the road. And I mean a full on, blind bolt. I had no control whatsoever, whatever I tried I couldn't do a single thing, I hauled and hauled on one rein, tried kicking it on, tried to get it off the road and onto the moor but to no avail - the horse actually bolted for nearly two miles :o

Luckily someone else had been sent out to look for it and he came across me - bolting along the road! So he followed me in his car - not much comfort that!!

Anyway - the horse eventually ran out of steam and I jumped off as fast as I could!!

So the moral of the story is - never jump on a loose horse that you have never seen before knowing that it had just put its rider in hospital because it bolted :p
 
I worked in a livery yard/riding school when I was younger. The horses had just had their annual flu/tetnus vaccination and this was back in the day when vets told you not to work them for a few days after or get them sweated up.
I was told by the YO (my boss) to lightly lunge her mare for 15 mins just to give her a leg stretch the day after, and I was in the school just letting her flop along when the YO's daughter came along and gave me a right *******ing for not lunging her properly. She then proceeded to take the mare off me, put tight side reins on her and lunge her hard for about 1/2 hr. She was a really scary woman and I was terrified of her so I didn't say anything except mumble that she had her jabs the day before. She didn't take any notice of me anyway so I just walked off.

A couple of days later the mare collapsed and was really ill and unfortunately died a week later, her liver had failed apparently because she had been on bute for so many years but I often wonder if it was being worked hard like that after her vaccinations that triggered it. I've never forgiven myself for not speaking up that day :(

edited to say this was about 20 years ago.
 
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Going out one Christmas to pick holly on a young TB*. What on earth possessed me to sit there, pull out a carrier bag and lean over to pick holly I don't know. Needless to say we covered quite a bit of ground with carrier bag full of holly flapping about before I came off. Poor horse.

*disclaimer - I was young and foolish at the time*
 
Buying the buggers in the first place.....

One becomes two, two becomes three.

You swap your car, rent your own yard. Spend all your time and money on them.

Some scrote decides to nick your tack ( on livery yard), then your generator )from my yard).:mad:

Mud, rain....early mornings.

Pah. Can you tell I'm fed up today:(
 
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