Spent a summer and fall on what was supposed to be a trotter training facility and boarding stable for snooty little rich girls' horses (should have just boarded the girls) but was really a tax dodge. Guy was raking money in hand over fist from electronics so needed a place that would offset income with a loss. At $15/hr to sit in a brand new Kubuto with A/C and drag a bar around pulling stones, I was part of that loss.
First day we got lectures on things to watch out for - crowding in the stalls, nipping (yeah, just love bites), tails switching across the face (what were you doing in that area to begin with?), and the dreaded standing on your foot. Second day some brash young punk who was not me showed up in a set of steel-toe engineer boots bragging about how no horse was going to get him. An hour later he's in an ambulance with bruised ribs from being crowded up against the wall, several nasty pieces of shoulder that may need to be completely detached. and one boot's compressed steel toe being the only thing keeping him from bleeding out from a toe-ectomy. Three out of four on the first day! The rest of the crew, as amazing as it sounds, learned that lesson and stayed away from those evil spawns of the devil at all times.
BTW - did you know that not only does it not seem to bother them, but that horses like a snack of poison oak? And that the odds are that some little rich spawn is going to kiss her horsey right on the lips when he trots over from the far side of the pasture where he has been snacking? I knew I was supposed to feel compassion, but I had to cut lunch short and crank up the tractor so nobody would hear me laughing.
In their defense, horse meat is very tasty. Mule tastes like week-old crap. I have no idea what donkey tastes like. If I cared to know I could ask Robert Zimmern.
stay safe.
