Keeping Our Horses Safe From Mother Nature & Other People

Two weeks ago we got hit with a torrential downpour…much needed rain, but as is typical in Florida, especially since we are in the midst of a drought, there was too much rain to be quickly absorbed and my barn aisle looked like the aftermath of a mudslide, except instead of water and dirt, it was a mix of water and sand, as the water run off flooded my aisleway, with nowhere else to go. Thankfully, the stalls were just far enough out of the way to have stayed dry and only once in 6 years have any of the stalls flooded. What is surprising is that the barn has never flooded from a hurricane. Maybe that is because I take extra precautions before a storm hits, such as making sure the gutters are cleaned out, digging a trench to divert the water away from the barn and adding sandbags. Unfortunately, when we get our summer rains, we never know what we are going to get in the amount of rain. I do have some measures permanently in place, but obviously those aren’t always enough protection against Mother Nature.

As I cleaned up the aisle the following morning…and the day after that as well to get the remaining residual of dried sand, my brain drifted to barn construction, and why people don’t put more thought into the location of their barn. For example, while I live on a ridge and we are fortunate to be high and dry, my barn was built at a slight downhill from the house. Math is my husband’s forte, not mine, but I will guess and say at about 10 degrees downhill from the house. Enough to divert torrential rain water to the barn. I don’t understand why the previous owner, who built the barn, didn’t locate the barn 20 feet away from its current location, where the ground is level with the house, or why she didn’t build the barn up, even 6 inches, to avoid flooding (we are in Florida after all!) We have a neighbor who did the same thing with his house…of all the places on his property to build his new home, he picked the lowest part of the property and without building it up.

I have been watching the construction of a new barn around the corner from me. The construction began with the four corner posts being placed in the ground on the highest point of the property….smart move. But then, for whatever reason, building was stopped and construction was re-started (and is now nearly finished), not only on the lowest part of the property, but also adjacent to a busy (and thus noisy) road, where accidents are common, due to careless and speeding drivers. Whenever I pass by on my way to town, I picture not only the ponies standing in water in their stalls after a hurricane, but I also can envision a car driving through the fence and into the barn.

Incredibly, in all my decades of living in Florida, the number of barns I have been to which have been elevated are rare. And it is not only flooding that barn owners should be concerned about. In my blog about fire prevention in blogs, I address barn construction measures that one can take to help prevent barn fires, which can be found at Fire Prevention In Barns, Part 2 And yet, I see numerous new barns that do not give any thought to fire prevention in their barn. I recently looked at photos of a new luxury barn that was built in the area, complete with chandeliers and expensive European stall fronts. Sadly, box fans were hung from the stalls and there was not one single fire extinguisher to be seen throughout the entire wooden barn that was clearly designed for aesthetics only.

Another barn safety blog I wrote about is how to protect our horses at horse shows. I wrote Keeping Our Horses Safe At Competitions after the barn fire at the Big E in 2024. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we also had to worry about some psychopath stabbing our horses while at shows. As everyone is well aware by now of the event that happened in Las Vegas with the barrel racing horses being attacked, many competitors are now addressing ways to keep their horses safe at shows. Many suggestions I have read include not posting on social media the whereabouts of your horse until after the show has concluded (good safety tips for everyone, both horses and human), installing security cameras, sleeping next to the stall, hiring security and proposing that horse show management keep stall charts private. I feel we should go one step further and make barns off limits to anyone who has no business being in the barn (which I know probably would not have stopped the attacker in Vegas, as she herself was a competitor.) I recently saw a post about a person being horribly attacked by a horse that was stabled at WEC. The victim needed medical attention for her arm, which looked like it had been run through a meat grinder. This particular horse had been known to have a tendency to lunge at anyone walking by (I myself was victim of such an attack, when a friend’s horse lunged at me over the stall door and bit me on my neck. If not for quick reflexes, the injury would have been much worse.) To me, it makes sense from a liability point of view to keep spectators out of barns. What ideas do you have to keep horses safe at shows?

And of course, we always need to keep our horses safe from thieves: Protecting Your Horses From Thieves I had a close call 5 years ago, when I found evidence of someone in my barn overnight, with gates to my runs open. Living in Florida, where horse theft is far too common, I never disclose information about my horses to strangers. Several more horses were butchered recently in south Florida and sadly, I don’t think any horse is safe in Florida from such heinous acts of crime.

I hope that you and your horse have a safe summer!

Don’t Forget to Hug Your Horse!

Lori