Sunday, March 1, 2015

Do you have a horse emergency kit in the car?

A recent post on A Filly's Best Friend about catching loose horses got me thinking about a similar incident in my own life about 10 years ago. I was driving to my barn in a not-terribly-rural part of Vermont, and a horse came out of what seemed like nowhere to gallop in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and luckily the horse was so wigged out by everything he came right to me. I grabbed his halter with my hand and led him over to the nearby barn that I knew he'd come from. They had only just realized he was gone and were relieved and grateful.



A few days later, I bought a cheap nylon halter and an extra cotton lead rope and added them to my car's emergency kit. I keep a few basic supplies in a milk crate in my trunk at all times: a jug of water, extra windshield wiper fluid, a quart of oil, jumper cables, some old hand towels, a human first aid kit, an extra winter hat and gloves, and some reflective blankets. I added the halter and lead rope to it. Of course, now that I'm prepared, I've never since needed it.

But reading that post got me to thinking: should I add to that kit? Maybe some gauze and vetwrap? I've posted before about my fairly obsessive trailering first aid kit, and I'm wondering if that needs to be expanded.

Do you keep any horse rescuing supplies in your car at all times? What kinds of things do you have?

6 comments:

  1. How do you handle the water jug in winter? This is the emergency kit thing I've never been able to solve. I usually have a Nalgene, but that's not ideal.

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  2. I don't have a kit per se, but my car trunk is essentially my mobile tack trunk so there's all kinds of goodies in there. The truck is a bit better kitted out, and the trailer even more so

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  3. Add a candle or several and matches. A candle can generate enough warmth to keep you from freezing to death in a car. And the light doesn't hurt during the darkest hours either.

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  4. Well I keep a random set of horse equipment in my car for storage purposes, so I probably have *something* but nothing dedicated to emergencies.

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  5. I have some things but never had the halter or lead,which I am definitely adding!

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Thanks for commenting! It's great to hear from you.