My barn is directly attached to my house. I went out last night to hang the hay net for the girls. Big mare is in heat and as she swung her butt to toss a kick at her best friend to remind friend she doesn’t get the first bite, Big mare missed and caught me. Fortunately above the hip and back a few inches, in the fatty part of my flank. Ouch!
I was so pi$$ed I chased them both outside while yelling threats of glue factories.
It reminded me of two other times I caught a hoof and lived to tell the tale. Once when I was about ten a mean Quarter pony with shoes on his back feet kicked me square on the point of my hip. I had a perfect hoof imprint, right-side up so the good luck didn’t drain out. 
A dozen years ago, I came up behind one of my young stock. I thought she knew I was there, but she didn’t, and she reacted with a well-placed kick that landed on the front of my thigh, about six inches above my kneecap. It would have shattered my knee if it had been lower.
What are your worst kick stories?
The first time I got kicked is still my most memorable. I was a kid at horse camp, and we were taking a pony back to his field. Someone was leading the pony and I was kind of back patting him on the hip as he went, and he finally got sick of me and nailed me in the thigh. Fortunately he was barefoot. Still left a big bruise on my thigh as a 9 or 10 year old. True to form (I’m still this way) I tried to hide it from my parents and didn’t tell any one at camp either. I was pretty successful until I went to jump on the kitchen counter to get something out of a cabinet and the long tshirt I was wearing rode up… I don’t remember if my mom was mad or not but she found out about it!
I’ve been pretty fortunate in the kick department, and learn my lessons pretty quickly. I truly think the only other time I’ve really been kicked was when I went to send a horse out on the lunge line and didn’t put myself in a good spot. He kicked out as he moved away and got me right in the stomach. Fortunately it was winter time and I had on several jackets for padding.
I don’t want to tempt the gods.
But I’ve felt the wind whistle past me a few times in my life.
Gosh, I can’t remember one kick being particularly worse than any other, but I certainly remember my most recent:
We rented a farm where I inherited the care of an older donkey who was the embodiment of the term jackass.
I was letting him out of his stall after dinner and he double barreled me right in the pelvis for no obvious reason. I had a newborn and didn’t need any extra trauma to that area! Plus I was angry and betrayed- by that point I had spent years taking good care of that curmudgeonly fellow who had been neglected most of his life, and that’s how he repaid me. His owner recently called me wanting me to take him back and I said “thanks but no thanks.”
I have three over a lifetime of horses, and none of them were directed at me in anger, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
1986 - as a teenager, my young pony, after a 12 hour trailer ride, was excited, leaped and cow kicked me as I was walking him around. Got me in the hip and I was pissed! I could only stand on one leg, had one hand on the lead rope, and one hand holding myself up using his mane. My only weapon was my teeth and I bit him on the neck.
Late 1990s - loaded my mare in a trailer with a gelding she didn’t normally go with, and as I stood behind her to do the butt bar, she squealed at him and kicked out. Got me in the thigh maybe 5" above my knee and I still have a dent there. I learned to do the butt bar up from the side after that.
About 2009/10 - same mare, same pony. Walking past them in the field to go to the barn in the morning to feed, I stopped to say hi to the old pony. Large and in charge mare for some reason decided to kick him, and got me right on the cheekbone and the back of my hand. I went to the ER for that one because I thought my hand was broken. It was not. I was lucky the cheekbone kick wasn’t an inch or two in any direction (eye, temple, nose, jawbone).
The pony made it to 33 and died in 2014. The mare will be 29 in April and is still the boss of the herd, but seems to be able to get her point across only with mean looks these days.
In August of 2014, I came home from work (was late getting home) and rushed out to feed all of my horses. I entered the ‘nursery’ which had my broodmares with their foals. I fed the girls their hay and went to replacing the rocks they had pawed away from the bottom of the fence (a typical evening chore). I live in the desert and the rocks help prevent coyotes from digging under the fence. Well one of my mares’ inquisitive colts came up to me as I was bent over and started to place is muzzle on my bare/exposed back. I turned around before thinking and shooed him away and immediately recognized his response to double barrel me. I covered my head for protection and ducked but his ‘not so little hoof at 7 months of age’ planted right over my right eye. He shattered my cheek “bone” and move my nose over an inch or two as well as breaking it. My eye was swollen and moving southward, blood was pouring everywhere, and I was alone and couldn’t see. My kids had all moved out and I was in the middle of a divorce. I called my elderly mother who lived 30 minutes away. She loaded up my father who was suffering from dementia and came to pick me up and drive me to ER. I managed to hobble to the driveway from my barn area and crawl into the back seat of her car. She dropped me off in the parking lot because she couldn’t leave my dad alone. I walked in and everyone came running assuming I had been in a bad car accident. Well long story short I survived and am grateful to my wonderful plastic surgeon. Addition to the abridged version, the sorry lot I was getting a divorce from had cancelled my health insurance despite it not being legal to do so. There was a brief ‘battle’ at the hospital of what they could and could not do since I had ‘no coverage at the time’. All was eventually sorted out but THAT kick (not my first) brought a lot of things ‘home’ so-to-speak and changed my life forever. I still have that inquisitive, not so little dude and am competing at third level with him now. I haven’t been kicked by anyone since.
Twice that really count:
One when I was 15. I was on a wonderful hunter pace, that I had always wanted to go on. Went with a friend of a friend’s friend who was an experienced, middle aged horse person. Her mare had serious issues with geldings that day. Unfortunately, no more than ten minutes into what was going to be a gorgeous ride those issues manifested. Mare nailed my horse. Except, my right lower leg was in the way. The horse shoe shaped scar tissue remains, nearly thirty years on. I enjoyed neither the ambulance ride or the hospital, and the gods never aligned for another hunter pace.
The other was just two years ago. I went to get my new yearling from the field. And my big draft took umbrage at it all. I should have put a halter on him and tied him up first. In that case, I was left staggering around clinging to an unhappy yearling until I got my breathe back following a direct blow from an angry, 2000 pound horse. He got me just below my hip, right where the femur is closest to the skin. I hopped/crawled into the house. My left leg was black from my knee to above my hip for weeks. My husband knew, but no one else. I should have gone to the hospital for that one!
Been kicked twice in 30 years of riding and owning. Once at age 14 Smokey kicked me in the stable. This half arab, half hunter at the riding school was just terrified, not mean. Nobody was around. I had to pick his feet so despite being as scared as him, I screwed up my courage and went back in and got him ready for our lesson. I don’t remember the riding lesson at all, but I do remember the lesson he taught me about fear.
The second time was another arabian. Needed to get a swirl of horses out of a pen via a gate in the dark after I caught my TB gelding. The young, sassy arabian wouldn’t move so I swung a rope at him and he kicked me 15 feet through the air. There was a kerfuffle of hooves around me as I lay in the dark, but my trusty TB gelding stood by me. I had a hard time getting up and making it back to the barn but no bones broken - only a dent in the muscle below my hip to this day. The arabian eventually was PTS because he had a screw loose according to his owner…
Whew!
Y’all have had some horrific hoof-related experiences 
{knockingwoodlikemad} I can only report 2 near misses:
Shooing my TB out of his stall - he was in my way as I was picking it - felt the wind as one hind grazed the wrist of my shooing hand.
Stung like Krazy, but nothing broke or even bruised.
To this day, almost 20yrs later, I’m convinced he pulled that punch.
#2-as my vet is powerfloating sedated Hackney Pony, I’m by his flank & decide to reach for his dropped “part” to check for a bean.
Little bastard cowkicked & grazed my thigh.
He later nailed the vet directly on hers… Still sedated 
She calls him Ninja 
Oh my stars, that second one… a kick is bad enough, but a kick from a grumpy draft 
please go to the hospital if that ever happens again (but fingers crossed that it never does!!)
Dumped grain for a pasture-fed horse (not mine) and as I walked off he spun and kicked for no reason, just being a shit. Smack in the center of my ass, hard enough to lift me and sent me into a wire fence with enough force to break some of the rusty bits and bow out the rest. Knocked the breath out of me. Had a lovely hematoma on my butt, both cheeks, and burning scratches on my elbows from going through parts of the fence (hurray for a recent HS-required tetanus shot tho)…
That was the one with the most force.
Another time I turned a hormonal filly out and as I took the halter off she spun and kicked, I spun and dodged but didn’t suck my hands back quite quick enough and she smacked me on the back of my hand and gave me a boxer’s fracture. Probably more painful in the long run than the other one, but very little force, just the right amount of hard-to-hard to make it count.
The scariest that caused almost no injury, two horses tied in a 16’ barn aisle on opposite sides, one stall apart sooo…kitty cornerish, if you will. One horse startled as I was walking by, pretty close, and blasted out hard but only got me with his legs and not his feet. It sent me into the butt of the other horse, who also startled and blasted back, also only catching me with his legs and not his feet, and I got sent back into horse #1, who kicked again but was swinging his tush away so I got bounced out of what felt like the world’s worse pinball machine. I managed to get out with just a sprained ankle and sore wrist, nothing that was even bad enough to bother me by the time an hour had gone by. Lucky.
In the early days of being a horse owner, I was in a trade work for board situation at a boarding barn with way too many horses handled by too many less than competent people.
I went to bring in a yearling filly who took exception to me taking too long to fasten the gate when her buddies were already in. As we were turning from the gate toward the barn, she somehow swung her butt and went for me with both hind hooves. She landed one of the hooves right in the middle of my sternum with considerable force. The sweatshirt I was wearing had a perfect hoofprint for a long time before it eventually washed out. I also had the perfect technicolor hoofprint bruise underneath. Felt very lucky that she didn’t hit me higher or lower or to either side.
The trade work for board situation did not last long. The filly grew up to be a very nice horse. I still have - and wear the sweatshirt.
Thanks for being such a good horse Mom. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment (and a lot of luck) to get them that far.
I’ve managed to dodge all mine, but had some serious close calls. If I actually got impacted by a horse who meant to hit me (and not because I startled him), he better hope he debilitates me because I’d be so pissed the CTJ meeting would be one to remember.
Biting and kicking - heck to the no.
The hoof impacts that I remember were from front legs, and 100% my fault. I was, ahem, closely inspecting something on the back of the front leg of my Old Man, and he snapped his leg up for a fly. Knocked me unconscious, and broke my nose. The other one was one of the young horses, don’t remember which, I leaned over to adjust a boot on the opposite side of where I was standing, and got the pointy bit of the knee right to the temple. OW. Saw stars, but didn’t lose consciousness.
completely off topic but we have a pile of gathered rocks in the middle of one paddock that overtime has become a practice jump as the pile has grown overtime.
But even when these rocks are stacked nicely the horse that is in that paddock will spent countless hours moving the them…does not make a difference on who is in there.
So rather than spent lots of dollars on toys such inflatable balls (Which Fig Loves to do battle with which the Ball usually wins) a pile of rock appears to just as entertaining.
As for being kicked, when I was working as groom for a Saddlehorse farm while in college one of the local well known Bigtime trainers nearly got killed when his prized horse kicked him in the chest, The trainer was hand grazing the horse on a loose lead long enough to allow the horse to turn from him, then hit him with both hind feet directly in mid chest… that was enough to forewarn me.
But being Stepped on by horses is the one that has always been my downfall, especially ponies, Two different ones have broken one my toes
I’m so sorry you went through that. 
All of the stories in this thread are harrowing, but after that, I would have been severely traumatized, between the surgery needed to fix your face and how your ex treated you.
Thankfully I’ve only been kicked once in my life, because I didn’t care for the experience… 
Rosie, my current 23-y-o Evil Princess, went through her peak Evilness at age 2. (I bought her as a weanling.) One day I walked into her stall to scoop out a few piles of manure. She was facing me at the time, but almost immediately she spun around and nailed me right on the upper thigh.
I was so mad that I shrieked at her, turned the manure fork around in my hand and nailed her on the rump with the wooden handle as hard as I could. She spun around to look at me with eyes as big as saucers and we never had another kicking incident. 
She did, however, give biting a try several months later, but my trainer had already explained the “for three seconds you make them think they’re going to die” strategy when my 4-y-o OTTB gelding bit me, so I jumped forward into her personal space, waving my arms at her and yelling like a banshee. Again, it only took once, because she’s a very smart chestnut mare who unfortunately tends to use those brains for evil rather than good.
Thank you for your thoughts and words. You do what you got to do. I managed to go to work the next day, looking positively scary. I had another veterinarian, friend, who was able to cover and perform surgeries for me that were scheduled, public owned animals, at our local spay-neuter clinic. Unfortunately I didn’t have any one in addition to perform the 22 surgeries scheduled at the shelter and an adoption event was already in the works. I managed with the assistance of an awesome veterinary technician who had worked with me for a few years to get those animals ready for the adoption floor at no additional risk to them - all surgeries successfully and uneventfully completed. The truly painful part was that my plastic surgery was scheduled 2 weeks after the kick happened. Due to fractures I had in my face, my frontal sinus was open. I had a training assignment (animal cruelty investigation instructor) in Colorado prior to the surgery. No one to take my place. The flights back and forth were the most horrific, painful experience(s) throughout the whole ordeal. I did make a lasting impression on the officers who attended my safety handling large animals class more so than my typically more popular forensics class 
Only been kicked once in my life but it put me in the hospital for almost 2 weeks. Poor little mare was young and had been on stall rest for almost 3 months. During one of our hand walks a different horse got loose behind her, she spooked, spun and kicked out with both hinds. I tried to duck out of the way, but she got me squarely in the ribs, missing my spine by about 2 inches (thankfully). Ended up with 4 broken ribs and a collapsed lung, then a week later surgery to repair 2 of the broken ribs with plates so they would heal properly.
I swear the poor girl still feels bad about it 2 years later
Oh God, that sounds even worse. Thank you for all the work you did as a vet as a clinic.
I seriously wonder how many of us “visibly injured” horse people have unwittingly deterred others from riding as we hobble around!
