And the fence was a mess, with blood spattered liberally in the snow beneath. This scenario has been repeated with just about any type of fencing you can imagine, although some have proved safer than others for horses. It seems everyone's got at least one fencing horror story to tell, and with all the different types of fence now available, sorting out the options can be a daunting task. The act of fencing in horses is contrary to their very nature. As free-ranging herbivores, horses have an instinctive phobia of being confined, and even several thousand years of domestication are not likely to convince them that cougars do not lurk behind every rock and tree.
Visibility is the first criterion in making a fence safe.
When we consider visibility, we have to consider how a fence might be perceived by a horse. Color is not a key factor in visibility, but brightness and contrast are. Black rails tend to become invisible in late afternoon shadows, especially when placed against a background of shade trees. Some fencing experts have suggested that if we really wanted to make our fences more visible to our horses, we would paint them in barbershop stripes. Where you place your fence also has a lot to do with how visible it will be to your horses.