If Disaster Happens , What About Your Horses?

As a breeder of Arabian horses what concerns me most is life’s unpredictability. The best laid plans of mice and men can be blown all the way to kingdom come with one nod from fate or Mother Nature. What happens to my horses in a disaster? What happens to my horses if something happens to me? These and at least a dozen other questions plague me on occasion.
What got me thinking along these lines today? Well, this morning as I was doing my usual search of horse blogs I can across this post. One Spark Away from Tragedy and that got me thinking about a fire at a big Arabian horse training facility several years back. An Arabian stallion, The Chief Justice, that I greatly admired lost his life in that fire. According to this information from the Western Horseman website Arabian Legends, another great Bask son, Wisdom, was lost in the fire as well. That fire altered Arabian horse history according to this quote from the article.

”Sadly, two stallions near the top of the list, Wisdom and The Chief Justice, died in a tragic fire on January 31, 1996, while still active breeding stallions. Had they had full careers, they might have become *Bask's best-siring sons, based on their early records.”

I found the above picture and more pictures of this particular barn fire being fought West BarnstableBarn Fire. Note these pictures are from a third fire in Massachusetts in 2002.

Barn fires are not the only danger to horse owners and their herds. Mother Nature can conjure up all forms of problems for horses and their owners ranging from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornados, wild fires and volcanoes erupting. Some of these may come with a small amount of warning time, some not. In the event of a warning, Mother Nature’s forces has been known to not go by the rules, change paths and end up other places striking unprotected areas.

So if the unthinkable happens to you, will you be prepared? If you think you are, will Mother Nature deliver her blow in compliance with your planning? One grateful woman in last week’s tornado found herself in this predicament. Thankfully, she had a great friend and a supportive community as written about on
Sierra Lynch’s Horse IQ The Problem Solver in her post In a Disaster This Is the Kind of Friend You Want for Yourself and Your Horses.

Like Sierra, I’m not going to address different disaster plans because frankly, the possibilities for Mother Nature’s wrath are so varied it would be impossible to do them all justice. But I am going to suggest that it’s important to the safety of your herd to consider the possibilities. We may not all be as fortunate as the people listed here. It’s entirely possible that we could end up left to our own devices to deal with a disaster and our horses’ lives will be dependant on us. How will your herd fare?