[microbovine]

"I thought you said he was a GELDING!" Said by one boarder to the other at the barn that was too stupid to understand using separate pastures for mares and geldings.

"Um, how come this stupid bridle doesn't fit?" Said by someone borrowing a boarder's horse after she put the bridle over the EARS first and was trying to stretch it down over the horse's mouth.

"You just have to show him who's boss." Said before intervention of about five people because idiot dad was getting ready to go after daughter's panicking pony.

[Ridinwyoming]

When the BO calls early in the morning yelling in your ear that your once in a lifetime horse that you just bought and brought home yesterday tried to jump out of his paddock and has his back legs stuck in the wire fence, says "it's BAD, meet me at the vets office". You get to the vet and almost throw up looking at the injury and think you're going to have to put your brand new horse down that you haven't owned for 12 hours.

Thankfully we have an amazing vet that stitched him back up and he is sound.

[DancingFoalFarms]

*absolute silence* -- Something I never want to hear at the barn.

[ybiaw]

Umm...your horse is on the golf course.

Related: "There's a golfer in the paddock again."

We were right next to a golf course, and on more than one occasion had a wayward golfer hop the fence to claim a lost golfball.

[HeartsongHorses]

20*F, Wind blowing

"All of the automatic waterers in the barn are frozen this morning...."

[Beau's mom]

"Mommy, I need you now!"
Very unusual to hear from my brave 23 yr old DD, who gets lots of catch rides on green horses in the hunt field. When she sounds like she is 12 again, I know it's gonna be a 'situation.'

[atr]

Dear husband, as I stepped out of the shower this morning:

"The pasture gate's down. No sign of the horses..."

Followed by a frantic half hour of horse-capturing and gate-fixing in sub freezing temperatures with sopping wet hair.

Sodding Elk.

[2DogsFarm]

Many years ago just after moving to a new barn.
Call from BM/Trainer:
"We had a fire"
TG, he prefaced it by saying "Your horses are fine" FIRST!

At my place, just me horse & pony inhabiting the barn:
1 - Sound of stealthy hoofbeats when I know none should be heard.
2 - sitting in the dark at night, barncat on my lap, and I hear something moving in the aisle. Worse if napping cat suddenly alerts.

[hrford]

WOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[PaintPony]

The sound of a stall door being unlatched and opened - when I am alone in the barn at night!

Then clip-clop clip-clop and the VERY BAD pony sticks his head in the aisle to see what's I'm doing. Little booger figured out how to unlock and open several different latch/lock combinations to keep him in his stall.

Finally we just started leaving him turned out all the time - problem solved!

[macmtn]

"Oh hell..there is a LOT of blood...where did it come from?"

[nasalberry]

OMG!!!!!

It certainly was.
But not as bad as the time that I came home from an elementary school play with my sons that one April evening in 1995, to hear a message on my recorder of my BO sobbing and saying "Call the barn! Please call right away!!"
I knew right then that my 10 month old AraAppaloosa, Khoti, who had been there a mere 3 weeks was no longer amongst the living.

[pony4me]

Sound of hoofbeats just as the sun is beginning to rise.

DH: It's fine. All four of the horses are just having a good gallop around the pasture.

Me: We only have THREE horses!

[McVillesMom]

I was a barn manager for about 6 years, and the most common phrases I didn't want to hear were varioations on the theme of "I need you to look at something."

That phrase began to inspire dread because it could tmean anything from a horse with hives to a bleeding gash in a leg to an automatic waterer flooding the stall to smoke coming from the manure pile.... Regardless of the specifics, "can you come look at this" is almost never easy to fix and is almost always expensive, and often involves calling a professional.

I *am* the professional...so I feel the same way when I show up to see my horse and someone says "Can you take a look at this?"