Best Gracie example: we were out hunting and had just cleared a pretty good size stone wall and were cantering up a moderate grassy slope, minding our own business, when she hit a muddy patch and her feet just SHOT out from under her and she fell, HARD. Landed on her right side and knocked the wind out of herself - I just rolled off her left shoulder and up onto my hands and knees. She started to get up in a big hurry (her eyes were like you say, big as saucers), but then she caught herself, stopped, and slewed her head around to look at me and make sure I wasn't in range of her feet.
I stepped over to her head, rubbed her ears, held her for a moment and then said, "OK, girl, get up." Only then did she stick out her front feet and scramble up. Loosened her girth and led her back and forth for a couple of minutes, jumped back on and walked and trotted her, she was just fine. On with the hunt! (we took the wimp routes thereafter, though, I didn't want her stressed.)
I heard about a horse abuse case today in the next town up the road from Bixby. Debbie, the girl I feed for this winter, called and told me about it, sounds really bad. She was called to come and help haul horses away from this place.
Several horses had not been out of their stalls in 3 years, one had a broken leg, one had an untreated cut that had grown so much proud flesh it looked like extra legs. These two are going to be put down.
The stalls hadn’t been cleaned either in that length of time, it took over 30 minutes to dig one out he was sunk in so much.
Several were very thin, and several of the ones that were outside were in pretty good shape. 13 in all were hauled off, QH’s and Paints. The owner pulled up in a brand new Chevy pickup, dressed very nicely as they were loading horses. The police showed up shortly afterwards, cuffed and stuffed her and took her to jail. Yeah!!!
I don’t even like think about such stuff...
Becky