Horses and fireworks: how to keep your horse safe on Bonfire Night

To keep horses safe during fireworks, find out when local displays are, keep your horse’s usual routine in the place it is calmest, remove hazards from fields and stables, stay nearby, and check it over carefully the next morning.

That is the whole plan. The rest of this post is the detail behind each part, and a checklist you can print or screenshot for the yard.

It is going up in early October on purpose. Bonfire Night is one evening, but the fireworks are not. Displays run on the weekends either side, private parties go off whenever they go off, and Diwali and New Year bring another round. The time to make a plan is before the first bang, not after it.

Why are fireworks so dangerous for horses?

Horses are prey animals. Their answer to a sudden, unexplained noise is to run first and think later, and a firework is a sudden, unexplained noise with a flash attached.

The danger is less the noise itself than what a frightened horse does next. A horse that bolts in a field can go through a fence or into a gate. A horse that spins in a stable can cast itself or hit the walls. A horse being led or ridden can knock its handler down or drop them on a road. The risk is highest when the bangs are close, come without warning, and the horse has nowhere safe to go.

The British Horse Society collects reports of firework incidents involving horses every year, including injuries and deaths, and asks owners to report every one, however minor, through its Horse i app or the incident form on its website. You do not need to be a member. Those reports are what the charity uses to understand how often this happens across the UK, so if something goes wrong this year, log it.

When is fireworks season in the UK?

Under the UK government’s rules on fireworks, nobody can set off fireworks between 11pm and 7am, with exceptions:

The same page sets out when registered sellers can sell fireworks: 15 October to 10 November, 26 to 31 December, and the three days before Diwali and Chinese New Year. Outside those windows only licensed shops can sell them.

What that means in practice is that “Bonfire Night” is really three or four weeks of possible fireworks, starting in mid October. Plan for the whole stretch, not one date.

Should I stable my horse during fireworks?

There is no single right answer, and the BHS says plainly that there is no evidence either way. It depends on the horse.

• Some horses feel safer in a stable. Walls, a familiar space, a light on and a radio can take the edge off.
• Some feel safer outside, with room to move and their companions beside them. A horse that lives out and is suddenly shut in on the noisiest night of the year has two things to worry about instead of one.

World Horse Welfare suggests that a horse that normally lives out may be better left in its field. If you do plan to stable it, start bringing it in a week or so beforehand so that being in is not new on the night.

Whichever you choose, the conditions matter more than the choice:

• If the horse is out: fencing secure and checked, gates shut and fastened, no barbed wire, machinery or clutter it could run into, companions together, and the field as far from any known display as you can manage.
• If the horse is in: nothing in the stable it can catch itself on, haynet tied safely, a light left on, and a clear way out in case of fire.

If a big display is planned right next to the yard and you know your horse reacts badly, the BHS suggests considering moving it somewhere quieter for a few nights.

How do you prepare your horse before fireworks night?

Most of the work happens in the fortnight before.

Find out what is happening. Check the local council, social media and local papers for public displays and their times. Talk to neighbours, nearby farms and schools, tell them there are horses close by, and ask for a message before they let anything off. Most people are happy to, once they know.

Get the noise in early, if you can. The BHS and the RSPCA both suggest playing firework sounds at low volume and turning them up gradually over days, so the noise is less of a surprise. Start well before the season, and stop if the horse is getting more anxious rather than less.

Make the yard fire safe. Clear loose hay and straw, keep the muck heap away from buildings, and know where the fire extinguishers and the evacuation plan are.

Talk to your vet early if your horse has reacted badly before. Both the BHS and the RSPCA advise this. Sedation is a vet’s decision, made for your horse, and not something to arrange on the afternoon of 5 November. The same goes for ear plugs and calming products: only use one your horse has already worn or had on a quiet day. Ear plugs that are new on the night, or that the horse shakes loose, can cause more alarm than the fireworks.

Have the numbers ready. Your vet’s out of hours number, your insurer’s claims line and policy number, and a contact for whoever is on the rota, written down somewhere that isn’t only your phone.

How do you keep horses calm during fireworks?

On the night itself, the aim is boring. Nothing new, nothing rushed.

• Keep the usual routine. World Horse Welfare and the RSPCA both say not to change it on the day, because the change is a stress in itself.
• Keep friends together. Horses cope better with their companions in sight.
• Give plenty of hay. Something to chew is a steady distraction.
• Play a radio or music near the stables, ideally one the horses have heard before, and out of reach.
• Be there, or have someone there. A calm person nearby helps, and someone on site can deal with a loose horse or a fire. On a shared yard, set up a rota so it isn’t always the same person, and so every night of the season is covered.
• Stay calm yourself. Horses read people, and a tense handler makes a tense horse.

Do not ride or lead horses out near a display, or after dark during the fireworks weeks. Hack in daylight, and if you must be on the roads in the evening, think again.

Look after yourself. World Horse Welfare is clear that your own safety comes first. If a horse is panicking in its stable, do not go in with it. Stay at a safe distance, talk to it, and call for help if you need it. An injured owner cannot help an injured horse.

What should you check the morning after fireworks?

Check every horse properly, even the ones that seemed fine. The RSPCA makes the point that a horse can run into something in a moment of panic without anyone seeing it.

On the horse:

• Run your hands over the whole horse, legs first, for cuts, scrapes, swelling and heat
• Look at the head and eyes, which take knocks on stable walls and fence posts
• Pick out and look at each foot, and feel for a strong digital pulse
• Watch it walk and trot in a straight line on a firm, level surface. A horse that went through a fence or slipped on concrete may be sore without a mark on it, and lameness behind is easy to miss
• Check it is eating, drinking and passing droppings normally

If anything looks off, a resting temperature, pulse and breathing rate gives you something concrete to tell the vet.

In the field: walk the whole fence line and the field before horses go out again. Look for spent fireworks, sticks and casings, and check the water trough for debris.

When should you call the vet after fireworks?

Ring your vet promptly for:

• Any wound that is deep, bleeding heavily, near a joint or on the lower leg. Small wounds near joints can be serious, so let the vet decide.
• Lameness, especially if the horse will not bear weight on a leg. This is urgent.
• Signs of colic: pawing, rolling, looking at its belly, not passing droppings.
• An eye injury, a swollen or closed eye, or a horse holding its eye shut.
• Heat in a foot or a bounding digital pulse.
• A horse still sweating, trembling or off its food hours later, once things have gone quiet.
• Anything you are unsure about. A phone call costs nothing.

Then report the incident to the BHS, even if the horse is fine. A near miss is still information.

What goes on a fireworks checklist for horses?

Where the technology fits

Not much, honestly, and the useful part is small. No app makes a horse less frightened of a rocket, and Stride has no fireworks alerts, no display map and no way of knowing when your neighbour is planning a party.

What it can help with is next year. The most useful thing an owner can know in October is how their horse coped last November: in or out, which nights were worst, what helped, and what happened the morning after. Most people have forgotten by the following autumn.

In Stride, observations are dated and sit on the horse’s health timeline. On the morning after, you can log what you found from a fixed list, such as Settled, Sweating, Wound, Lame or Filled legs, with a mild, moderate or marked severity and a short note: stabled, radio on, sweated up 9 to 10pm, fine by morning. If the vet comes out, the visit goes in the health records with photos of any wound and the invoice or report attached as a photo or PDF. And if you already use the movement scan, a scan in the days afterwards can be compared with your earlier ones.

It is a record, not an assessment, and it does not tell you whether a wound needs a vet. Your eyes and your vet do that. But next October, when you are deciding whether to bring a horse in, you will have last year’s notes instead of a guess.

Make your plan this month, write down your numbers, and check every horse the morning after. Then write down how it went.