There are mystery birds, and mystery fish, and mystery skulls, and today I present mystery marks for you to identify:
What made the marks on the hindquarters of this horse?
Bonus points if you also identify the breed of horse.
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What made the marks? Chupacabra!
Horse breed: Finnish cold blooded? A nasty surprise for the above mentioned goat sucker.
You’ve been watching old episodes of The X-Files, haven’t you?
Um. Cactus?
(My mental image of Texan landscapes is derived almost entirely from TV and movies, and therefore may not be entirely accurate)
Nope, not cactus. The marks were made in the US, but not necessarily in Texas, and the injuries occurred 6+ years ago.
A run-in with a barbed wire fence? I’ve seen wire scars like that, although usually on the legs, not the haunch.
As to breed, it’s a bay with smallish feet. Quarter horse or Arabian?
Cougar / puma / mountain lion?
actually, ignore that… the three marks are far too widely spaced. Mr E Man guesses barbed wire?
Mountain lion is correct, actually. There’s another long thin scar on the other side of her hindquarters, at roughly the same height. The woman who owns the horse says she was out on the range for the first three years of her life, so it’s likely that she’s grown and/or gained weight since she was attacked. That might be a clue as to her breed, too – she’s not pure Arabian or Quarter horse.
Barbed wire is a good guess, but the injuries I’ve seen are typically very jagged, and leave irregular scars, and as Nancy mentioned, are usually on the legs. Also on the chest, as when a panicked horse tries to run through the fence.
None of our horses are in barbed wire paddocks, btw; my friends use electrobraid, and all the T-posts are capped. My horses have also been in pipe pens and panel pens, never in wire. Being Thoroughbreds, they have lamed themselves kicking at the pipe or at each other on occasion, and sometimes go lame for no good reason at all (e.g. “I think I’ll develop a hoof abscess this week … yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Last week I stomped on a mesquite thorn, so that’s old hat.”)
If she spent time out on the range, then mustang? Mexican ranch horse? Whatever, she’s lucky to have survived a mountain lion attack!
Mustang is correct. The woman who adopted her says that surviving a mountain lion attack is further proof of the toughness of most mustangs.
Kick kick and kick some more would be the Mustang breed 😉 If the scars on the other hindleg is at the same height one could almost see the montain lion jumping up from behind and clawing … as you asid, toughness to kick that off!
Seems like she has a very lovely colour (or hue)!
Given the amount of damage horses can do to a fierce predator, with unshod hooves, I’m sometimes amazed that they tolerate humans and allow us to ride them. I used to keep my horses near a racetrack, and one of the trainers showed me what an angry horse could do – this guy was 6 feet tall and weighed at least 250 pounds, and a Thoroughbred colt had picked him up by the flesh on his back, and then tossed him on the ground. “Like a rag doll,” he said. o_O
Wolverine, obviously. 😉
Snikt!
Barbed wire.
Hola, Alejandro!
It was almost certainly a mountain lion … see Cath’s guess above.
Hi Kristi !- not think it’s a lion, that there is much distance between scratches, unless it is an Allosaurus that this patroling about for the sector.
Bah, I am late to this particular party but for the record I was going to guess Cougar / Mountain Lion / Puma.
We have them just beginning to sneak into Ontario, but in remote areas fortunately. Terrifying things. Of course, for Stephen’s benefit, we also have Wolverines up north, which are even more terrifying. Anything that can take down an adult moose and eat large portions of it in one sitting is not something I *ever* want to meet. Even if I was equipped with a good set of kicking hooves.