When you encounters a condition that requires prompt veterinary care, assess the horse's condition to the best of your ability and be prepared to answer a veterinarian's questions about the horse and his behavior. | Photo: Erica Larson

Minutes after being loaded into a trailer at the end of a trail ride, Q.T. pawed through the narrow opening between the trailer’s wall and its access door. In doing so the Quarter Horse mare lacerated her right front leg. Trainer Kari Sullivan knew immediately the injury was significant, but she was miles from the nearest veterinary clinic. So she cleaned the wound with alcohol and pressure-wrapped the horse’s leg with sterile gauze pads and polo wrap.

Within hours the horse was back at Sullivan’s farm, where a veterinarian sutured and dressed the wound. These days all that remains from the incident is Sullivan’s memory of it and a faint scar on Q.T.’s leg.

“It really could have been a lot worse, especially since it happened so far away from any veterinary help,” she says