Self-preservation

All I ask from Romeo and Johnny is that they try not to get sick or hurt when I leave town. It's all I ask. If I had a dollar for every time one of my horses walked up to me bleeding, three-legged, or swollen, I would be a millionaire. I feel like it is a horse's life dream to get as many nicks and scrapes as possible. (Does everyone else feel this way too? Very frustrating!) Usually it's just Johnny I have to worry about. He has limited braking capacities and has no idea where his feet go when he is not being ridden. He now gets bubble-wrapped for turnout, and that has helped the situation a lot.

Example A: Muddy footing, galloping, and sliding into the fence, attempting to jump over, getting stuck, and retreating backwards through the broken fence. That's my boy. I buy real winners.

"Oh...did I do this?"
GUILTY!

You would think that wild horses would have some sort of self-preservation thing in their head to keep them from getting beaten up so often...and therefore our domesticated horses would as well.

It seems that this beautiful weekend Romeo thought it would be a good idea to be the wild stallion of his herd and not only assist in breaking a mare out of her pasture, but then not let anyone else get near her. Apparently, there was some brawling involved. Fortunately, it was all superficial.

As close as a black(ish) horse can get to a "black eye"

I am just glad his eye was closed whenever that happened...Just a few other scrapes on the inside of his LF and a 4in scrape on the underside of his head. Lovely! Gave him the day off because well a) he just looked kind of pitiful and b) I am supposed to be writing a paper on Contagious Equine Metritis.

Now about that paper...