Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

 I have posted this here before a few years ago, but since this
thread is current I'll tell the story again.

A friend got separated from her horse, who had no ID, and had a
scary few hours until he was found.  To avoid this problem, I
put a luggage tag on my saddle.  As luck would have it, just a
few days later, my horse slipped and fell, and took off before I
could grab him.  I hiked to a nearby stable and used their phone
to call home.  Got the voice mail, as the line was busy.  Left a
message for my husband saying I was OK and would call back asap.
Unfortunately my husband was on the phone to the people who had
found my horse, and did not think to check for phone messages. 
Not knowing what else to do, he went to the horse.  So he knew
were the ehorse was, but I could no reach him, and I DIDN'T know
where my horse was and had no way to reach my husband.  So I
bummed I ride back to my truck, hoping my horse had gone back to
his farm.  Nope. So I drove back to the trails to start looking
again, and fortunately saw a man and a boy walking the bridle
paths: they were looking for the rider of the horse that had
showed up in their yard - BINGO!  By the time my husband got to
the horse, I was there.  Now my husband is not horsey, and I had
just switche dbaording stables, so he would have had no idea
where to take my horse home to (not to mention he does not ride
and I did not have a trailer then).  

So, I wrote up an instruction sheet on what to do when the 'I
found your horse' call comes.  It includes a description of the
trails I most commonly ride, my vets phone numbers, names of
peole with trailers, and people to call to mount a search party,
and, most importantly, the command "STAY BY THE PHONE and CHECK
VOICE MAIL". It is in flow chart form: "Ask if the horse is OK:
No?  call the vet.  Yes?: ask if the horse can stay there for
awhile.  If not, here are the number numbers of folks with
trailers and the address of the boarding stable.... and so
forth.

The moral of the story is, if you have non-horsey family members
who will be the ones getting the call, make sure they no what to
do in different scenarios.

________________________________________________
Get your own "800" number
Voicemail, fax, email, and a lot more
http://www.ureach.com/reg/tag
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We are talking about all the tools we can use to keep our horses safe and
alive at the rides. Training/conditioning is one of the best tools
available. It makes us better horseman and women, it benefits our horses
and could quite possibly be the key to preventing most crashes.
~ Lisa Salas - The Odd Farm

ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/

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