Silly horses

This morning, Cliff and I got the electric fence put up to keep the horses out of the lush grass that would have eventually led to founder.  We did this in the mud, by the way.  That two inches of rain left quite a mess out there.  At least the electric fence posts were easy to drive in the ground.  


I predicted to Cliff that Snickers, the next-door neighbor's twenty-one-year-old mare, would take off running and break through the electric fence; we watched the horses for a few minutes after turning them out, and although there was some running and cutting up, they all came to a halt at the new fence-line.  


But ten minutes later, a horse did run through it:  Not Snickers, but Sassy.  Somehow the other two horses knew something had happened to frighten her, and they ran through the gate back into the lot; Sassy was afraid to go back where she had just gotten shocked, but she stood at the big gate, which was closed, until Cliff let her in with her pals.   Then he fixed the fence.


I noticed six hours later that they were all still in the big lot.  There really isn't much to eat there; they've got it cropped to the ground.  Evidently they were afraid to go back out.  So I got a can with a little sweet feed in it and stepped through their walk-through gate.  Tude and Snickers hesitantly followed me, but Sassy did not.  No way.  She wasn't going out there to get hurt again.  

A while ago I looked out to see Snickers and Tude grazing happily in the electric-fenced-off area.  Where was Sassy?  

Right up there in the safety of the big lot by herself.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.