11/28/2025
🌿 A little Thanksgiving story from Horse Haven Ranch… and why “night check” will ALWAYS be non-negotiable here.
Last night, while most of the country was slipping into a turkey coma, I was doing what I do every single night here at Horse Haven Ranch — night check. And what happened is exactly why this place exists in the first place.
When I started dreaming up Horse Haven years ago, my biggest driving force wasn’t just to have another boarding barn. It was to fix something that’s been broken for far too long in the horse travel world: overnight boarding.
I’ve lost count of the phone calls and messages I’ve gotten over the years from heartbroken, exhausted travelers:
“We pulled in at 10 p.m. after 14 hours on the road… the website photos were 15 years old. The stalls were filthy. There was no one on site. We had to carry our own water buckets in the dark.”
Or worse:
“We left our horses, went to sleep in the trailer, and woke up to one down and rolling. No one had checked on them all night. We barely got the vet there in time.”
These aren’t rare stories. They’re the norm at too many places. Overnight boarding has largely become “horse storage.” You drop them off, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. And that’s not okay.
So when I built this place, I asked one question over and over:
What would *I* want if my heart horse was spending the night in a strange stall, hundreds of miles from home?
The answer became our standard — and last night proved, once again, why we will never compromise on it.
We had two wonderful repeat clients staying with us — horses we’ve seen several times before, always perfect gentlemen. At evening check-in and dinner check, both horses were bright, happy, eating, drinking, pooping… textbook perfect.
Owners went to sleep after their long drive, exhausted.
When I walked in around 9:30 p.m. to scoop the last of the manure and top off water, everything looked normal… but it didn’t *feel* normal.
You know that feeling - call it “horse sense.” It’s not something you can teach in a clinic or put on a résumé. It's something you're born with. It’s quiet. It’s subtle. It’s the little whisper in the back of your mind that says, “Wait. Look again.”
So I stopped, watched, and waited.
One of the horses — a kind-eyed senior gelding who’s hauled thousands of miles in his life (previous endurance horse)— started shifting his weight. Lift a hind leg. Hold it. Switch sides. Lift the other. He wasn’t pacing. Wasn’t pawing yet. But he wasn’t settled either.
I’ve seen a million horses “just get comfortable” after a long trip. This wasn’t that.
I opened the stall, haltered him quietly, and took him for a slow hand-walk under the barn lights. Ten minutes in, his head came up a little higher. Ears flicking. Then the first soft paw.
I grabbed my stethoscope (yes, I keep one in my barn's Equimed first aid kit along with nearly everything else 'emergency'). Heart rate normal. Gut sounds? Sharp, tight, gassy bubbles — like someone shaking a half-empty soda can. Not the deep, rolling ocean sounds you want to hear.
Gas colic. Starting.
I didn’t hesitate. Knocked on the living-quarters door and woke his owners. Within five minutes they were out in pajamas and muck boots, no questions asked, total trust.
We moved him to the round pen. Walk. Trot when he could. Stretch. Belly lifts. More walking. Anything to keep that gas moving before it twisted into something we couldn’t fix. He was giving us feedback through facial expressions, licking and chewing, sighing and head shaking.
For two solid hours we worked as a team — me watching every flicker of his expression, listening to his gut every 15 minutes, owners keeping him moving and loving on him.
There were moments I thought we were turning the corner… then he’d paw again. I had the vet’s number pulled up, thumb hovering, ready. We just needed a little more time.
Finally — around midnight — he passed a pile of manure, and the sharp bubbles started to soften - but they were still present. His eye softened. He sighed and continued to pass gas with all of our help. He is doing better now. Passed two more piles, and ate a bit of watered-down mash.
But here’s what keeps circling in my head:
If this had been a typical “drop-off” overnight facility — no staff on site, no night check, owners asleep with no idea anything was wrong — that horse could have been in serious trouble by morning. Or worse.
A five-minute check caught a life-threatening colic in the earliest stage.
Five minutes.
This is why night check isn’t optional here. It’s not an “add-on” or a luxury. It’s the entire reason this ranch exists.
And this is my plea to every overnight facility owner reading this:
Please. Offer dinner check + at least one solid night check. Train your staff to recognize the subtle signs. Keep a stethoscope handy. Care enough to lose a little sleep.
Because the alternative isn’t worth it.
To the owners of that sweet gelding — thank you for trusting us with your horses, again and again. And thank you for jumping out of bed at without hesitation. We’re a team, always.
To everyone else hauling down the road with your horses this holiday season — there’s a barn in St. George, Utah that will check on your horses like they’re our own, all night long.
Safe travels, friends. And hug your horses a little tighter today.
🤍 Horse Haven Ranch
Real care. Real peace of mind. One night check at a time.
