Horse hazards

This will be a short post....because my hand freaking hurts.

 Ok, so it doesn't look nearly as gory in the pic as it does in real life....normally I can see the bones in the back of my hand clearly, just to give you an idea of the swelling.  The bruising is deep and developing slowly, but I don't think anything is broken as I can still move everything and pressure doesn't create any stabbing pains (I'm typing pretty effectively right now).

Sunday, after spending an hour doting on my half-sleeping horse (it was bath time) and hand grazing her for another 10mins, we headed back to her pasture.  The breeze was up, it was a beautiful evening and she perked up as we headed up the hill.  We were just through the first gate when she majorly spooked, dove forward and yanked me along with her as I had a pretty good grip on the lead rope.  Meaning my hands where right out in front of me when she sent a rear hoof directly at me, catching me in the back of both hands and across my left forearm.

Needless to say I let go of the lead rope.  Which is a good thing, because otherwise I would have strangled her with it.

Dax went tearing off.  After I assessed the damage (can move everything, no major blood, have feeling again) I followed to catch and return her to her pasture.  Of course she gives me these" Oh HI mom!  Where have you been?"eyes and actually walks to me across the rest of the field.  She nuzzled my scraped up arm after I let her loose in her pasture, probably smelling some of the blood.

Idiot. Horse.

Just goes to show it doesn't matter how much your horse loves/fears/trusts/knows you....if something scares it badly, they know they can run faster than you, and the fastest one survives.  Bomb-proof horses are a myth, and any horse that can stand on four feet can still kick and bite.  Shoot, they can bite even if they're lying down!  While I've never had that particular incident happen, I do have some nice bite scars, along with permanent dents in my quads where a filly double-barrelled me in a stall, and and old scar below the bikini line where a horse caught me in a pasture and hairline fractured my pelvis.  That's not including the concussion from falling off.....

So you remember the last horse post where I talked about how every time I get on a horse I am trusting it with my life?  I want to amend that to be "Any time I am within 20ft of a horse, I am trusting it with my life."

More later, but right now there's an ice pack calling my name.