Monday, August 4, 2008

Near catastrophe - 8 to go

Holy mackerel - Guess I did not think it would come so fast.

Today could have been a real catastrophic day. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest and I thought Tyler was going to collapse he was so upset.

Tyler was moving panels with the tractor thru Sierra's little pasture. And Sierra being Sierra decided to go thru the gate with the tractor. She got out into a pasture pen with hotwire on 3 sides. Tyler being inexperienced horsey person ran to head her off and of course that made her run faster. She went through the fence, broke off 3 fence posts and pulled the wire all over the place. That scared her worse of course and she went through another fence and tore it up. That put her in with our 6 horses that are in that pen. They wanted to get acquainted and that scared her and Raven tried to chase her off with her teeth bared.

I told Tyler to stop, just stop and the horses would quit running. They did. Pepper did try to protect her and got her behind him and just kept her there. It was really amazing. Truly Bob's wonder horse. I got Sierra's halter on and she was shaking. Went over her with my hands and there is only a little ding on her forehead but nothing else seems to be wrong. I put her her stall and let her settle down. Poor Tyler was sure I was going to really be mad at him for letting her get out. No way. He worked very hard and got new posts set and the fences all back. Just what he wanted to do on a very hot day. Felt sorry for him.

Later in the day we went out and went thru the trail items. She did very well, in fact her side pass was very good. She was glad to go back to her house. Tomorrow she goes to see Dr. McKinley and get her health certificate and perhaps a Coggins.

3 comments:

  1. Hi,

    I found your blog thru a link on Arelene and Wildairo's blog. Wow what a story with your horse getting out and running thru the fencing. I'm glad that she is okay and that the other horse protected her.

    We had two mares that went barreling around the field and ran right thru 3 strands of wire. Only scratched them a little- no blood or anything but it was a terrifying experience not being able to get them to stop running to avoid the fence.

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  2. Thanks for reading my blog. Have a daughter named Nikki - spelled the same. Yes it was scarey and that and with what she pulled today made me have a stomach ache. Yes. you feel utterly helpless.

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  3. Oh Lea,
    For some reason I missed this post. WOW!

    I bet Tyler is used to cattle because I notice cattle guys leave gates open for ages while driving through them because cattle, as a rule, don't bolt through an open gate like a horse would. I've finally trained my husband to not do that anymore.

    About 20+ years ago my father-in-law left a gate open because he was in and out and my very high strung show horse few out of the pen at 100 mph and galloped down a county road back to our other pasture where his friends were. My father-in-law was yelling stuff like "head him off, he'll end up clear down at King's"! I was really worried he'd damage his legs on the road because he was bolting this way and that waiting for me to come and open the pasture gate. A woman drove by 50mph didn't slow down but honked her horn at my horse, then I lost it and shouted at my father-in-law to stop yelling all the time because all the horse wanted to do was get back where he felt safe. Once the gate was open the horse flew right through the gate into the pasture.

    Once my husband saw a herd of our neighbors horses out on the road and thought he'd drive behind them and head them home. He told me afterwards, somewhat surprised, "Those horses didn't drive like cattle, they all took off". ha ha.

    Glad she's Ok. Your some kind of woman Lea and I really admire what your doing.

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