Regular inspection of your horse’s water buckets, troughs, and automatic waterers is an important barn management task. But so is examination of your barn’s electrical system. These horse owners learned the importance of electrical safety the hard way. Thankfully, no horses were seriously injured, but from these experiences we can learn ways to keep our barn environments safer.
JUMPING AND JITTERING
Sharon Wellmann is an APHA and AQHA Professional Horseman with a training barn in Conroe, Texas. Eight years ago, she noticed that her horses were behaving strangely when her assistant was walking them out of the facility’s main barn into the arena.
“The horses were jumping out of the door,” Wellmann says. “They would get to the door, then leap into the air.”
Wellmann had been out of town, so she figured they were just acting up. But then, a horse not wearing metal shoes walked out of the barn and had no reaction.
“We brought another horse
