So many times growing up around horses I remember a common warning was to never leave a nylon halter on a horse unattended.
As I became a professional I also issued the same warning to all my students and any one handling a horse because it did make sense, in all honesty I never thought the worst case scenario being a horse breaking his neck would ever actually happen.
I mean really...
have you ever known of such a thing? Well, I'm here now to tell you it does indeed happen and it happened to one of my best horses.
I'll have to go back many years and to a student that was all things horses.
The girl practically lived at my ranch.
Because of her fierce desire and dedication she became a competent rider very quickly mastering in weeks and months what would take others years.
She continued to improve being spurred on by the goal of someday riding a brilliant but complicated horse I owned that few people rode because he was almost too talented for his own body and mind and was often quite a handful.
I put off her requests to ride him for as long as I could until finally as she pleaded with me her case that she was ready I gave in telling her it was her funeral and to not be too disappointed if her ride ended badly.
Much to my surprise it did not and that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship between a young girl and a horse that was her world.
The girl and the horse went on to do things nothing short of amazing all along being the best of friends.
They had great success in competition along with enjoyable trail rides and great fun at play days.
It seemed there was nothing the two couldn't do well and I watched their bond grow until one day her beloved horse was the first in my barn to go down from having been poisoned with the infamous botulism outbreak in So.
Cal.
It was finally detected that it came from the hay cube feed and ended up being responsible for many equestrian deaths.
With the vets not knowing what we were dealing with at the time, my instincts told me it had to be the feed and I changed the feeding regiment in time to save my entire barn with the exception of this one horse who steadily grew worse even though we had him plugged into an I.
V.
and was doing everything we knew possible to save his life.
I'll never forget the long, countless hours this girl sat next to the horse's near lifeless body, stroking his neck and whispering softly to him that he would be OK and she would always be there for him.
This girls dedication went beyond the boundaries of caring as she only left this horse's rotting corpse when it was very late into the night and her mother would insist on her coming home and as I would rise very early to go out to the barn the next morning she would already be there bending over dressing his huge gaping sores as though his body was dying from the inside out.
The horse lived on the brink of death for over a week when finally one day the girl came into the house screaming that Alfie was up! He was up and wanting something to eat.
None of us could believe it and as we all ran out to see the horse was alive the thought of how many times I tried to talk the girl out of spending so much time with him because I knew he would die was a blatant testimony to the power a girl can have with a special horse.
That was when I knew I had to give Alfie to her.
I had to admit to myself that she loved the horse even more than I and proved herself worthy to care for such a fine animal.
To me he was just a nice horse; to her he was her world.
Even to this day and in light of what I am about to tell you I have never regretted that decision.
Alfie's recovery took some time but the girl never tired caring for him and in time he was better than ever with the two of them again in the jumper competitions and winning at the regional level assuring them a spot to compete at the Arab nationals that year in Scottsdale Arizona! It was after this accomplishment that Alfie came up with a lameness that was diagnosed as a pulled suspensory and would take a year of lay up to deal with.
It was a great disappointment but the girl's dedication held firm and her family resolved to finding a quaint facility near their home where he could spend some quiet time healing.
It had been several months and Alfie was doing well with his leg healing fast.
The girl's entire family embraced this horse because of what he meant to her and it was not uncommon for the girl's Mom to stop by of an evening after work to spend some time with him even though she knew her daughter had been with him much of the morning.
It was on one such evening that when driving away from her visit the Mom realized she had left Alfie's halter on from tying him to allow her to give him a good grooming.
As she continued to drive toward her home even though the thought of what I had taught her about the danger of leaving a halter on burned in her mind, she dismissed her worries telling herself that she was running late and that she had never heard of such a thing actually happening.
The next morning as was usual the girl was out to visit her horse even before the help had arrived to feed and to her horror she was the first to find her beloved horse laying there with his lifeless body dropped in a heap but with his head in the halter strung up, attached to a post he had sought out to rub against.
Apparently when he went to scratch the itch on his head the halter had caused he caught it over a post on the corral, panicked, pulled back and broke his neck! Can you imagine how the girl's Mother must have felt when finding out she was to blame for such a horrible thing happening to not only her daughter's horse but her best friend? And all because she had been thoughtless and paid no heed to her inner voice telling her to go back and take care of what she had left behind.
So my friends, here is my warning to you! Never but never, ever leave a halter on a horse unattended.
If there is some situation that demands a halter be left on then it MUST be either made from leather or have a break away leather strap on it! Believe me when I tell you...
if you leave a halter on a horse they will start to itch under it and they will find somewhere to scratch and chances are huge that they can easily slip it over something and get caught.
Are you willing to take such a chance for no reason?