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There seems never to be a dull day on the…

There seems never to be a dull day on the farm. One of our horses, Branston a colt, has learnt how to open a gate inwards, it allows him to get out of his enclosure and cause havoc, where ever there are other horses. Without us realising, he has been doing it for a few weeks. We have been blaming each other for leaving the gate open. Today we caught him at it. Branston is only two, you would not expect him to be doing that at his age. He would not have learnt it from another horse, he would only have seen us opening the gate inwards.

On the other occasions that Branston had got out, he first goes to Arnie’s paddock, where Lady, Woody and Breeze are also turned out in the day, after a few menacing threats, that makes the mares run riot around the paddock, Branston realises that it would not be wise to have an argument with Arnie, and trots up to Smugglers paddock, further up the farm drive. Smuggler is a four year old colt, about the same size as Branston. They have a argument across the gate, biting each other until I managed to catch up to him, to chase him back to where he belongs. Before I could get into the position to chase him back, he decided to leg it further down the drive, towards the road. I managed to get in front of him, to turn him back, by running round the lake to cut him off.

As I got Branston back to his paddock, I could hear horses behind me, when I turned I could not believe my eyes, there was Smuggler and his paddock mate Sunny, running so quick toward Branston’s paddock, I could not get time to close the gate. I turned Sunny but Smuggler got into Branston’s paddock, a situation you really don’t want. Two unfamiliar colts are very liable to hurt each other. Branston at his age would initially be very submissive, but Smuggler you just don’t know what he would do, if he decided to start attacking Branston, Branston would retaliate, where it would end, you can never know. There was a lunging whip leaning against the wall. Cracking the whip, a lot of running around and shouting, we managed to chase Smuggler out of Branston’s paddock. After blocking the drive to stop Smuggler from running up the drive, towards the road we got him and Sunny back into their paddock. We never make a mistake in tying Smugglers gate. I can only think that Smuggler or Sunny had been playing with the tie, when Branston was at the gate he push it slightly open, allowing Smuggler and Sunny to squeeze through. Fortunately none of the horses got hurt, but it was very close.

Don’t make to much of Lady not being rugged up tonight. Although the excitement of the colts getting out, could bring the foaling on, I left the rug off as it is not that cold and the rug was nearly over her head last night. I don’t like to strap the rugs up around the legs, to keep them on, so near to foaling, if you miss the foaling there is a chance that the foal may get caught up in the straps. We are waking every hour to make sure she is OK, although I reckon we are awake more than asleep, we seem to be more tired when we get up in the morning, than when we go to bed. The sooner she foals the better

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