Rural Heritage December 2025/January 2026

Treating Duke

to harnessing and driving with a bridle and bit, he got a bad injury. My wife saw him get cornered and kicked by another horse. HARD. Since we weren’t able to continue training him for a couple months, I thought I would write a little about his injury and how it was treated. First, let me say I am surprised we haven’t all seen these injuries more than we have given the number of horses we have all seen kicked. I recently heard of another young horse (6-month-old filly) with almost the exact same injury. I think perhaps the older horses are a little more self-protective and also maybe a little tougher under the skin. Duke got kicked on the left side of his chest, just above the left leg and just below his neck, near the

by Donn Hewes

Editor's Note: In the last issue of Rural Heritage , Donn Hewes began documenting his training program to teach a coming 2-year-old Suffolk gelding to drive. The plan was to update readers each issue on the horse-training progress. Unfortunately, that plan has been temporarily paused while Donn and Duke take care of other business. W e were making great strides in training Duke, an 18-month-old gelding and having a lot of fun working with him. Just as we started to make the transition

About three days after he was kicked and it is getting hard and warm.

Checking Duke’s temperature was part of our daily routine

Rural Heritage

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