…and it did. One of us got kicked by a horse. Yep, it would be me who had the trail-riding mishap again. There have been numerous close calls with horse hooves, but until now we’ve escaped harm. I wasn’t so lucky on our otherwise-idyllic trail ride on Saturday. (More on that, with pictures, later.)
First, I have to say that it was pretty much my fault. There were seven of us on the trail ride, with seven very different horses: two Tennessee Walkers (our Cash and Shari’s still-unnamed horse); our Appaloosa, Romeo; and four Quarter Horses (Katy, Cluless [not a typo], Rabbit and Pistol). I was riding Cash and we stopped for a break. My saddle had shifted back (forgot the darn breast collars) so I got off and started adjusting it. Dummy me, we were standing next to Shari’s very young mare, Pistol, and I was in between. I don’t know what happened – I assume Cash sniffed her nose or some other grievous offense – and Pistol let a hoof fly. I was obviously in the line of fire. I thank the good Lord that I was facing away from Pistol, so her hoof caught the back of my calf, not the bony front – otherwise, I’d have a cast on my leg now, and possibly pins in it too, instead of a very large, colorful and painful bruise.
Purty, huh. It knocked me down too. I tell you, I’m spending much too much time picking myself up off the ground on trail rides these days. Hey, at least I didn’t fall off this time! And again, Cash avoided stepping on me. He could easily have backed up, away from Pistol and over me, but instead chose to walk in front of the scary mare. I love that horse.
Once again, I remind you – having horses around is dangerous. Y’all be careful out there.
If you’ve been faithfully reading our blog you know which horse we’ve selected. Mikki mentioned it in her last post. In case you missed it, here’s a recap.
Ever since Sinbad left, we’ve been looking for a replacement horse. We needed one anyone could ride and this new horse would become my regular every day horse while I work with Moonshine. Over the course of the last month or so we’ve checked out a total of four candidates: 1) Snowball, a cremello Tennessee Walking Horse, 2) Misty, a spotted Tennesse Walking Horse, 3) Romeo, an Appaloosa and 4) Cash, a spotted Tennessee walking horse. Misty was eliminated early due to inexperience and Cash and Romeo quickly emerged as the front runners. After vet and farrier checks, short rides, long rides, pacing the floor and scratching our heads, we decided we’re ready to make a selection.
Cash…AND Romeo!
A while ago, Shari told us that if you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself collecting horses. This seems to be true and here we are with FOUR horses. Here’s why we selected both: Cash makes an excellent gaited horse pair for Valentine, plus he has the paint markings I prefer. He’s a handsome fellow, easy to ride and not as tall as Valentine. But Romeo has barrel racing experience, is also easy to ride and gentle (he’s also handsome). I can learn how to barrel race on Romeo and he’s reserved and gentle enough for the Kid, who we’ve decided will be taking lessons soon.
So now we have a few new challenges:
1) The expense of feeding four horses
2) We just bought a two horse trailer. Since Valentine is so big, we’d need a new truck to get a bigger trailer.
3) We only have 3 horse stalls. We need to convert a storage stall.
4) Introducing two new horses to the herd. Romeo apparently is the herd boss in his current pasture.
So meet our two new horses:
I’ll get some better pictures of them without riders.
Our horse world has just expanded! I think we have enough now, though. And on a side-note, our horse friend Shari just bought a big Tennessee Walking Horse that looks a lot of Valentine so it looks like we’ll be riding gaited a lot. More soon.
We’ll get to the title in a minute, but we have so much to tell you, I don’t even know where to start!
We had a GREAT day of trail riding on Saturday. Our horse friend Shari, who was not in the market for a new horse, bought one: a Tennessee Walking Horse! A very large, jet-black one that looks strikingly like Valentine. Shari jokes that when she and I go trail riding on our own, we’ll take our “big black steeds.” (She doesn’t have a name for him yet, so if you have any suggestions, send them our way; he’s a sweetheart, 8-year-old gelding, all black with a star and white pasterns on both rear feet. His temporary name is “Spot,” so he’s badly in need of a new one.)
We bought a horse too! Cash. Yes, he tried to run away from us, but we decided he probably didn’t mean anything by it. In fact, we decided to buy him the day he escaped. He is just such a good horse, in so many ways. So when we started out on our trail ride, Bill rode Cash.
So who did I ride, you wonder? Well, even though we decided to get Cash, we just liked Romeo so much we weren’t ready to let him go yet. His owners also had a saddle for sale that we’d like to try, so we took Romeo and the saddle on our trail ride. I rode Romeo for the first part of the ride. Dayle came too (Romeo’s owner), riding her mare Katie.
So there we were, three of us on three new horses. Fun, huh? The first excitement was when Shari dismounted to open a gate and Spot swung back toward us; Cash spooked, which spooked Romeo, and we all swung around. No big deal – we’re all getting to know each other, after all. Then we started out with a creek, so see how Spot handled water (we already knew Romeo didn’t mind it, and Cash of course crossed the creek any number of times during his afternoon stroll on Monday). Spot didn’t like it. Shari had to get off to lead him through, but after that he was fine. We crossed a bridge, rode through a variety of terrain, had a canine escort (Dayle’s dog Oreo – Cash didn’t like it but tolerated him). No problems at all.
Bill had a great time with Cash, and I love riding Romeo. I wouldn’t have wanted to switch, in fact, if the saddle we were trying hadn’t become uncomfortable. But it did, so we switched mid-ride. We met some cows, took a break under some trees and let Spot and Cash sniff each other. Again, no problems. Then it got REALLY exciting.
We decided to let the horses drink from the creek. I started to ride Cash through the trees, thinking that it was just some leafy branches. I didn’t realize until it was too late that there was a large branch in the midst of the leaves. I didn’t have the grip I should’ve on the reins, so I couldn’t stop Cash in time to save me from being swept off the saddle. Off I went, sliding right under Cash’s feet. To make matters worse, the reins caught on the branch, preventing Cash from moving away. I looked up as I fell and saw those hooves right above me, and I swear, I thought I was a goner. Shari was sure I was about to be stepped on too; I think it looked pretty bad from where she was watching. Dayle was nearly as alarmed. (Bill, on the other hand, made what seemed like a pretty insensitive joke when I got up; he’d missed the whole thing.)
But the amazing thing was that Cash deliberately tucked his hooves up under himself to keep from stepping on me. I’d heard that horses do that instinctively, and it turns out it’s true. I said a little prayer of thanks for that, and silently thanked Bill too for making us wear our geeky helmets even though no one else does, then hugged and kissed Cash and announced that we are definitely keeping him. I love that horse!
Oh, and we’re keeping Romeo too. He’s just too good a horse to pass up too, and…shhh, don’t tell him, but…the Kid’s going to learn to ride, and Romeo’s just the horse to teach him. Besides, it’s a nice change of pace for me to have a horse that I don’t need help getting up on. And when I’m done bragging on Cash for not maiming or killing me, you’ll hear lots of praise about Romeo.
But for now…I love that Cash. He’s the best! And don’t forget to wear a helmet, even though it looks dorky and your head sweats and you get helmet hair. Because remember: it’s always dangerous to ride a horse.
Here’s a plea to Troxel and other horse helmet manufacturers. Please, for the sake of all that is manly, please make a horse helmet for guys that doesn’t look so dorky. I spent weeks and maybe months looking for a good helmet. I ended up with very nice Troxel helmet that I like very much except for one thing. It’s GIANT…I mean watermelon huge. Hey, my head isn’t THAT big. All the girl helmets look cool but the guy helmets look stupid. And I’m guessing that’s one of the biggest reasons I never…that’s right NEVER see guys wearing helmets. Girls don’t wear them much around here either but you see more girls than guys wearing them. I’m still a newbie and I’m still riding horses I don’t have a long history with so for me it seems a helmet is a must. But I hate looking like a dork wearing one.
So Troxel, are you listening? Surely you can make something that’s safe and still looks good on guys. Help us guys keep our manliness and save a few brain injuries while you’re at it.
As I mentioned earlier, “Cash” is in our barn to test him out with our resident horses. Mikki works during the day so we decided to keep Cash in the barn until she got home so we could watch him together. I felt bad for him being cooped up in the barn all day so I put his halter on and took him for a walk this morning. As with the previous day, he was curious but well behaved. He ate some green grass while I washed him and dressed a wound with ichthymol. No problems. He was happy to go back into the barn but didn’t want anything to do with Moonshine, who was making quite a racket.
Our farrier came by to check out Cash’s feet and even though one foot has a slight clubbing, it didn’t look bad to him. He wasn’t concerned as long as the horse didn’t exhibit problems walking on it. Next I had the bright idea to put Moonshine in her stall so Cash and Valentine could socialize and establish order. This went pretty well. Valentine isn’t aggressive at all and seemed curious but not pushy. Next to our barn is what I call “the peninsula”. It’s an area that juts out towards the small road by our house where the horses like to stand and watch cars drive by and cows across the way. Cash headed to the peninsula and from the other side of the barn I saw Valentine slowly walking that way. Now the peninsula can be a trap and for this reason we should probably fence it off. There are two ways in and out – one high and one low – but it still feels like a corner. I didn’t see what happened next but I heard a loud crack and the sound of tin crinkling, followed by shod hooves cantering down the road. Cash had escaped. I knew enough to quickly grab a bucket with some feed and a halter with lead rope, as I hurried after him. A quick glance at the fence explained the noise. Cash had somehow broken the top two fence boards at the end of the peninsula, both of which were reinforced because Valentine like to eat grass over the fence in that spot. Did he run right through it? Did he try to jump the fence? Why? I have no clue. Cash ran down the road where I walked him earlier that morning, promptly turned (thankfully…the highway was less than a quarter of a mile in that direction) and headed towards me. I shook the bucket and offered it to him but he wasn’t interested. He ran right past me towards the barn. The gate was open so I hoped he would run into the barn but instead he ran up the road, past our farm. The road was fenced on both sides for quite a ways so I gently called him as I hurried in that direction. He walked past a few houses, avoiding the curious neighbors that happened to be outside. The end of this road is private and I had never been very far down it. I was about to get the whole tour. Cash made his way to the end of the road and headed for a garden. I caught up to him and ever so gently tried to send the lead rope around his neck but he knew I was chasing him and avoided me at all costs. The elderly couple who lived there came out to see what the ruckus was and I apologized for the intrusion. They didn’t seem to mind and even tried to help me wrangle him. Realizing the road was somewhat blocked, Cash headed into the woods and we both ventured further and further from home. Mikki wasn’t answering her cell phone so I called Shari for help. She sent Mikki home (they work together) but Mikki forgot her cell phone so she had trouble finding me. Heck, I didn’t even know where I was at this point! Cash navigated through a junk yard full of rusty old cars, sharp scrap metal and broken glass. I, in my shorts and boots, followed him. Shari recommended I not chase him but instead wait for Mikki to show up. Sometimes women have better luck catching horses. So I trailed him at a distance so I knew where he was while I waited for Mikki to find us.
Cash headed down a trail, even further from home. He eventually found a creek, which he crossed to try and reach the pasture on the other side. Fortunately and unfortunately there was a fence on the other side. At least he couldn’t go any further that way but the fence was barbed wire and he seemed to be trying to push through it or jump is. I saw this horse run up and down steep embankments, though thick brush and over small trees and all the while I’m thinking he’s going to get hurt. Once he got close enough to me so I was able to pet him and try to calm him down but when I tried to slowly move towards his head he bolted again.
What seemed like an hour later, Mikki finally found us. She had to ask several neighbors to use their phones and apparently the very rough geographic indicators (south of the old barn at the bottom of the hill from the junkyard), as well as some audio cues (think marco-polo) but eventually there were two of us. At this point, Cash was close to being tangle in old barbed wire. I have heard the stories and seen pictures of horses that got themselves caught in barbed wire and it isn’t pretty. That and Cash had wedged himself between the barbed wire fence and some trees at the top of a narrow and steep embankment. What the heck?! I stayed a distance away and Mikki trudged through the muddy creek to reach him. As she approached, Cash tried to jump the barbed-wire fence but couldn’t. Mikki spoke softly to him, climbed up to where he was and was able to halter him.
Here’s a short video from my cell phone so you get a feel for how he was stuck. The video is of terrible quality and you can barely see him but you’ll get the point. In the video, he’s rubbing on the barbed wire fence, trying to run through it and jump over it. Scary! You’ll hear me say “don’t do it buddy!”. I didn’t know what to say.
Once the halter was on him, he seemed perfectly normal again. It was a challenge (and probably pretty dangerous) getting him down off of the ledge, through the thick brush and trees and old barbed wire, through the junk yard again and then a two mile walk home but the entire way he behaved as though nothing happened.
Back at home after almost 4 hours in the hot sun, we were all tired, hot, thirsty, cut up and bruised. Mikki washed his old and new wounds, dressed them and put Cash into the barn. Valentine and Moonshine looked at him as if to say “what the heck happened to you?”
Here’s what the fence looked like:
I put up new slats with screws and doubled up the top one, making it as high as possible. It’s a miracle he didn’t impale himself on the sharp pieces of broken wood. I’m starting to think we need to consider one of the electro-braid fencing alternatives. While it might not have stopped him, the braided rope wouldn’t impale him.
At night we put Cash into the round pen and let Valentine loose. Moonshine has been curtailed in the barn ever since. Valentine, ever the curious one, slowly and gently went to investigate the new horse in the round pen but Cash wasn’t in to socializing.
It’s been almost 24 hours since this ordeal and things have settled down quite a bit. Valentine routinely spends time near the round pen. He pretty much goes between the barn and the round pen now. Cash doesn’t appear to mind and gets quite close to him. When Valentine followed me to the barn, Cash got pretty excited, as if he wanted to go too. Otherwise he occasionally nibbles the grass or stands in the shade. Earlier this afternoon I washed his wounds, dressed them and took him for a walk around the back part of the pasture, which he hasn’t ever been through until now. I wanted him to know his options so he could “escape” back there if he felt threatened by one of our horses. I hate this part – introducing new horses to the herd. It’s so stressful for everyone.
The plan is to let the horses get acquainted through the bars of the round pen for a while. Then maybe we’ll introduce Cash to the pasture again with Valentine loose. Later we’ll let Moonshine out there while he’s in the round pen. Some internet research also revealed the suggestion that we take all the rear shoes off of the horses. They all need new shoes anyway.
A runaway horse kit?
Oh, so back to the point of this post (and I know it’s an extra-long one). As I was chasing this horse yesterday, I realized I was missing a few things that would be been handy. But I didn’t have time to round things up because I needed to make sure I knew which way the horse was headed at all times. This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered runaway horses, either. Once we accidentally left our gate open and once we tried to help Shari catch one of her loose horses. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a backpack we could quickly grab. In it could be:
1) Halter and lead rope (we should have one in each vehicle, too)
2) Map – this seems stupid but I could have used one yesterday
3) Flashlight – could be dark outside
4) Bottled water – you might be out there a while
5) Horse treats or food in a zip baggie
6) Something to display the horse treats/food/bribe in to the horse
7) Snake bite kit! Don’t think I wasn’t worried about that yesterday. Maybe even a bee sting kit.
8) Basic tools – knife and a small finger saw – the flexible kind you can cut a tree limb with, if need be. I needed this yesterday.
9) Towel
10) Small first aid kit/Something with which to make a tourniquet
11) Flute or piper (pied piper anyone?) – kidding 🙂
And don’t forget your cell phone!!! Though you probably wouldn’t keep it in this backpack.
Got any other ideas for an emergency runaway horse kit or advice for us?
We’ve had a busy horse-related weekend. We’ve been to two horse shows and checked out a fourth horse. Meet “Cash”, a 5-year-old spotted registered Tennessee Walking Horse. He’s about 15 HH, has a calm temperament, is trained and of course flashy. At one of the shows, we ran into some friends who were much more into horses than we thought. They were showing that night and during our conversation it was mentioned that they have this walker for sale. The guy bought this horse for his wife but she prefers black and white spotted coloring. She bought a black and white TWH three weeks after they bought Cash and although she loves them both, she’s only able to keep one. Mikki and I rode him a few times Sunday to get a feel for him and the ride went very well. Later Sunday we had an opportunity to ride him for a couple more hours on the theory that it’s much harder to hide bad behavior on a two-hour ride than it is on a 15-minute ride. We like him so much, we asked if we could keep him for a few days to see how he does at our barn.
The ride went well. We rode him through streams, wooded trails, hills, around cows, around other horses…nothing fazed him. Mikki rode Valentine (it’s so cool having a trailer!) and the two of them hit it off nicely. Although they did seem to want to race each other, we were able to hold them back. Once one went into the TWH gait, the other automatically shifted into that awesome gait, too. Cash trailered nicely, loading and unloading without concern.
So on the positive side, he’s met all of my qualifications. Shari even likes him. The only negative we can find is his feet. One front hoof is a little longer than the other and his feet are pretty rough. It’s probably because previous owners shod him themselves. We’re going to have our farrier out to check his feet. He could also use a little weight, which is something we could work on quite easily.
So at this point, we favor both Cash AND Romeo. I wish we could buy them both. We’ll see what we can do. I still plan to ask to take Romeo on a longer ride but we know his history and reputation so I’m less concerned with testing him out. I know he’s a good horse.
BTW, my shirt in this picture says “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway,” a John Wayne quote. Thanks for the shirt, honey 🙂
Take a look at the picture below. We have one of those cool 110 gallon Rubbermaid water buckets and ours has an automatic filler with a float valve (like a toilet). The hose we’re using to keep this bucket full is looking compromised so I haven’t been leaving the water on all day in the heat. The picture below was taken after a hot day with the waterer turned off. You can see the water line near the top of the bucket. Those two horses of ours sure drink a lot of water! Just a reminder to make sure those buckets are full each day.
BTW, we love this bucket and the waterer. I’ll write about it someday and include some other pictures and tips on how to keep the water clean.
Romeo is officially candidate number three. He’s owned by a neighbor who really doesn’t want to sell him but has moved on to a more powerful horse. Romeo is an 8 year old appaloosa gelding, about 14 HH and is well-behaved and rideable by anyone. Mikki and I spent a few hours checking him out and riding him. I rode him in fields, across bridges on pavement, through the woods, up hills, etc. and the ride, although a little slow, was easy and enjoyable. When I wanted him to go, he galloped with a little prodding. Romeo can plow and neck reign, can be ridden bareback, has been ridden double and triple and has even barrel raced, with ribbons to prove it. He has a clean bill of health, uses our same farrier and is in good shape from being ridden almost everyday. So I’d say he’s a strong candidate and probably our forerunner. I think I only snapped one picture of him without an identifiable human in it (below).
So even though he’s a little small and the asking price is a little higher than I wanted to go, maybe Romeo is the right horse. He’s a horse I could build my confidence on, break into some amateur barrel racing for fun and enjoy while I’m working on my project horse, Moonshine. And if I outgrew him, he’d be perfect for the Kid.
Plus we almost have a romance theme going in our barn. We’d have Romeo and Valentine. Moonshine might need to be renamed Juliet!
Candidates 1 and 2 have both been ridden by our horse friend, Shari. I trust her opinion and because of that, we’ve decided to eliminate candidate 2, “Misty”. She’s a beautiful horse but spooks somewhat easily and hasn’t been ridden in three years. She doesn’t seem to know much and other than her awesome natural gait, which is quite special, can’t seem to keep any particular pace. And I don’t have the time for another project horse. Man, she’s beautiful. Oh well.
Candidate 1, “Snowball” is still a possibility but Shari thinks we can do better. So we’ll keep looking. I don’t want to rush, after all.
I don’t remember who said it but someone once said that horses are large animals that spend their entire lives trying to kill themselves. And it’s amazing how easy it is. Frequent Our First Horse reader Laura wrote on her blog recently about a scary colic incident with her horse Little Horse (LH for short). She just had a good day of riding and returned to the barn. Soon after, her horse began acting strangely including kicking her own gut. Fortunately, Laura knew this was a sign of colic. Her story ends well but the thought occurred to me that she was quite lucky to have seen these signs before she left the barn. If she had missed them or didn’t know what they meant, LH could have died that night. Check out the story on Laura’s blog (the colic post was 5/18/08 and is titled ” A scary Friday night with LH”).
Laura is pretty seriously into horses. She even took a cattle-herding class this week. That’s pretty hardcore cowboy stuff. I’m not quite ready for that but it’s fun to read about her adventure.
…and it did. One of us got kicked by a horse. Yep, it would be me who had the trail-riding mishap again. There have been numerous close calls with horse hooves, but until now we’ve escaped harm. I wasn’t so lucky on our otherwise-idyllic trail ride on Saturday. (More on that, with pictures, later.)
