should invest in bubble wrap

Somehow, don't ask me how, my horse Tisa managed to slice a 6 inch by 2 inch gash on her left front leg, almost from knee to ankle. On the down side, its huge and clear to the bone. On the up side, its on her lower leg which is mostly just skin, bone, and tendon anyways and she missed all the tendons. She was a very sore and swollen girl this morning who did NOT want to take her medicine or let me check the swelling. She is willing to put weight on it, though. The vet says she'll be good as new in two weeks.

I know when she did it. I know where she did it. Hell, I was watching her when it must have happened but I still for the life of me can't figure out HOW she did it. I was letting her run around in the indoor arena since her paddock is a sheet of ice. She can't really move out there right now and I figured, since no one was using it, I'd let her have some fun before our ride. She was snorting, bucking, prancing, having a high old time. I stood in the middle and watched and called out transitions, walk to trot, trot to walk, little trot, big trot, stuff like that. She was listening well as I could expect after a month of ice. Still, I've seen her be crazier on the lunge line and she wasn't running wild, just tossing her head and throwing out a good kick or two every once in a while. After 15 minutes, I called to her and started walking for the door. She came trotting over, head and ears up, tail flagging, prancing like she was having a blast. I clipped on her lead, opened the door, happened to glance down and saw blood EVERYWHERE. Insert 5+ hours of waiting and vets and stitches here.

The indoor is one of the safest places for a horse that you can imagine. Its just a BIG room. Nothing in it. The walls are all finished and the only "risky" things in there are the big ass mirrors. They had just drug (flattened) the indoor before I turned her loose, so all the foot prints in there were from her. The barn owner and I walked that thing a dozen times yesterday while waiting for the vet, trying to figure out how she cut herself. She didn't fall down. She never got closer than 2 feet to any of the walls, except at the mirrors and she doesn't run into the mirrors. She walks up to them very slowly and snootles them, trying to talk to the other horse in there. My pony is facinated by the mirrors and will spend an hour looking at herself if you let her. Still, there isn't any way she could have hurt herself on them. The bottoms of them are all shoulder high on a human and they are in frames. Short of shattering one, there aren't any edges down at leg level on a horse.

The only thing we can come up with is that she had just gotten her feet trimmed by a new farrier yesterday. He hadn't rolled the edges of the hoof, leaving them sharper than the old farrier did. We think she somehow managed to slash herself up with her own hooves. She's done that before to the backs of her front legs to a MUCH smaller degree. How she got the front of the front leg is beyond me. The bad thing is, I have boots to prevent that sort of injury from happening. I just didn't think to put them on because the only time she's kicked herself previously was when we were jumping. From now on, booties anytime I think she's going to act silly or be moving faster than a walk.

So now I get to go up morning and evening, force antibiotics and pain killers down her throat and change her wraps. Note that Tisa does not like either antibiotics or pain killers and will refuse any food that even vaguely smells like them. I've tried adding molassas, corn syrup, applesauce, everything to her food to cover the taste and she just won't eat it. The only way to make sure she gets everything is to dissolve it in water and syringe it down her throat.

She doesn't like that either.