You’ve heard it a hundred times before, and you’ll probably hear it a hundred times again: “If there’s a way a horse can get into trouble, it will.” That means if you have abandoned machinery at the far end of your 900-acre spread, your horse will find it. If you have one little outdoor faucet that protrudes from the barn wall in the paddock area, your horse will bang into it. If you have one segment of rough terrain, your horse will fall on it. That’s why it’s as important to fence horses out of potentially harmful areas as it is to fence them in safe confines.

There are natural and man-made hazards that need to be assessed for their potential to cause your horses harm. Trees, steep inclines, and ponds are the most common natural pasture and paddock hazards that should be fenced off.

A single tree in an open area is an attractant for lightning, and a horse which shelters beneath a tree that gets zapped will likely not survive. Even standing near a tree that gets struck is dangerous; shallow roots that travel away from the tree can conduct lethal doses of electricity to all creatures standing on the ground above. (For more on lightning, see “When Lightning Strikes” on page 48.)

Ornamental, toxic trees might be beautiful, but they can be deadly. And no, horses don’t “instinctively” know to stay away from some of those toxic plants. Also, even if a tree can’t kill a horse, a horse can kill a tree