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[RC] Horse with a bleeding mouth - k s swigart


Molly said:


40 miles out, one of the girls I was riding with pointed
?out that my horse's mouth was bleeding.? Of course
?I freaked out and dismounted to find out what was
?wrong.? Because we were on a single-track trail, I
?pulled over and announced to the folks behind me
?that they could pass.? Three or four riders went around,
?but the two girls that I had ridden with all day stayed
?with me.? As these other riders were passing, one of
?them commented that, "There's nothing you can do
?about it now, anyway"-


For me, a telling part of this story is the"we were on a single-track trail" 
and "two girls...stayed with me."

If I were in a situation where somebody pointed out that my horse's mouth was 
bleeding, before I stopped and had another two riders stop with me, I would 
make sure that it was a safe and convenient place to stop and that my stopping 
wasn't likely to cause more problems on the trail than blood coming from my 
horse's mouth might.

I have NO idea what the conditions of the trail were other than 
"single-track."? If there was a safe place to pull over so that everybody else 
in the ride wouldn't have to go off trail to get around me (i.e. if I didn't 
cause a traffic jam), then I would probably pull over and stop.

However, I wouldn't consider blood coming from my horse's mouth to be a red 
alert emergency such that I couldn't continue on if I needed to find a better 
place to get off trail to check it out.? Because, indeed, my horse is probably 
not going to die of whatever the cause, and my horse's condition is probably 
not going to be significantly negatively impacted if I continue on for a bit 
and make sure that I am well out of everybody's way before I stop.

There are some drop dead red alert emergencies for which I must stop 
immediately even if it does cause a traffic jam on a single track trail, but 
this doesn't sound like one of them...so whether I could have done anything 
about it "now" anyway is a very valid question to ask IF by stopping I am 
possibly causing an unsafe or inconsiderate trail situation.? 

If I am going to stop in the middle of a single track trail and make people 
either go around me or wait for me, then it really ought to be for a good 
reason and it would need to be?for something that I could actually do something 
about by stopping. A?number of years ago early in the Eastern High Sierra 
Classic the person I was riding with had a tack malfunction and the girth ended 
up around her horse's flank and the saddle on the horse's ass--yes it was a 
single track trail, yes there were lots of peole behind us,?even so?we stopped 
and got off the trail into the bushes (we didn't make people go around us we 
let them have the trail) and repaired the saddle problem...because we COULD 
repair the saddle problem and because if we didn't do it right away we might 
have had one hell of a rodeo.? I certainly, however, would not have stopped 
there to check on some blood on my horse's mouth, or even a gash on my horse's 
leg.? It just WASN'T the kind of place
that was a good place to stop if you had people behind you.? And we did have 
to ride on a little bit before stopping in order to find a place where we COULD 
get off the trail into the bushes instead of "over the edge."

I have NO idea what the place referred to in the original post was like (except 
that it was described as a single track trail), but I can definitely say that 
there are some places that are not good places to stop to check on why your 
horse's mouth is bleeding.? So this might have been one of them.? If it were, 
then asking myself if there is anything I can do about the condition anyway is 
a perfectly reasonable question to ask myself before stopping.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)

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