The Adventures of Star and Nox: Outside at last!

The stable owners have been working to convert one of their pastures so that the fencing is tall enough to contain Nox. They use electric fencing in their pastures and last year Nox leaned against the wire fence, was shocked, and ran straight through it and broke it. It was pretty scary.  He hasn't had any exposure to electric fencing that I know of (race barns usually have board fencing) and his first experience with it was awful. I could only turn Nox out it in the outdoor ring where he could nibble on the grass at the edges, but I really wanted him to be out in the grass pastures during the day.

The stable owners let him out in the indoor ring for 30 minutes while they clean his stall in the morning, but most of the other horses get to go out all day in pastures. I felt bad that he had to stand in his stall until I arrived at the barn to let him out. As a racehorse, Nox would spend 23 hours in his stall, so I knew he was used to hanging out in the barn.  But horses should be outside grazing - especially when they are retired racehorses, and it's warm and sunny, and the birds are singing, and the grass is swaying in the cool breeze!

The past few weeks, as the stable owners have been constructing the fence, I've been taking Nox into the pasture and grazing him on a lead. We walked the perimeter a few times and he got used to the area. Two days ago, Nox's pasture was complete. They used a different type of electric fencing that is a thicker web material and they placed two rows of the fencing higher on the posts so that Nox can easily see it. We turned him out in the pasture and hoped for the best.

Free at last, he wandered around a little bit before settling in to graze. It was very anticlimactic, but exactly how I hoped it would go.  I wanted him to touch the fence - not because I'm mean - but because I wanted to see how he reacted. If he ran through it again, I wanted to be around to catch him! After about an hour, he wandered a little too close to the fence and backed into it. Nox's butt was shocked by the fence and he jumped forward in surprise, shooting across the pasture like a rocket! He stopped well before he reached the other side's fencing and turned around. I laughed out loud and was so pleased that he had received the shock on his rear end instead of his chest. I wonder if he had hit it with his chest if he would have run through it again. This way was perfect, since it made him run away from the shock. He hasn't come within five feet of the fencing since!

Nox is now being turned out in his pasture in the morning where he enjoys the grass and sunshine (theoretically - it's been cloudy and rainy lately) until I get to the barn in afternoon.  I'll put him in the barn after we ride and play and he'll spend the nights in his stall.  I'm so relieved and happy that he finally gets to live like a normal horse.
Yay!