Re: numbering horses
Samm C Bartee (bartesc@mail.auburn.edu)
Fri, 24 Jan 1997 16:09:04 -0600 (CST)
> if the horse dumps his rider out on the trail and looses the bridle too
> how will ride management know who is out there?
>
> i think the grease crayon on the horse is the best way to mark
As strange as this may seem, at the Gold Rush ride one year, I had this
very same thing happen. I was on a horse that I had never ridden. He was
a nice horse, but had a tendency to want to turn down things that were not
trails. Well, on one of the loops, he did this to me as we were heading
down hill, and the saddle was pretty loose. I could not maintain balance,
and I came off. I landed on my feet facing the horse, but on the hill, I
sat back down. At this point the horse reared over me, out of fright I
think. I rolled away from him, and the bridle came off in my hand. I
jumped up and the horse was already almost out of sight coming back the
way we had just gone. I thought he would stop at the first riders he met,
but he didn't. He ran dead out for more than 4 miles heading strait for a
major highway. SOme CTR people that were there helping with the ride saw
him and gave chase. it was fortunate that they were there. It was called
into camp that horse number ?? was loose, the rider was missing, and there
was a saddle pad with blood on it found on the trail. I wasn't hurt, but
the horse had somehow caught his fetlock in a culvert, but this did not
stop him either. He was bleeding pretty good, and his pulse was off the
scale when they got him back to camp. His endurance career was ruined due
to this injury, and my nerves were rattled for a couple of years. I still
don't like to ride others horses now, even though I KNOW it was not my
fault. I did all I could, but that was not good enough. Luckily, the
owner was a friend of mine, and knew that I did all that I could.
Sorry about th ramble, I guess I'm talkative today:-)
I just know that had it been a stranger trying to catch that horse in a
National forest, and no markings or anything on him, it could have been a
very lost or very dead horse. We were just fortunate to have people on
the road that knew what they were dealing with!!
there was also a horse lost in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama a
few years back that stayed out there for 6 weeks, saddle, bridle, etc. He
was found OK, hungary, but OK. Perhaps Joe Long can speak to this
episode, as it was before my time. But he was found, and I suspect that
the markings helped.
samm