Re: picket lines

[Chris Paus <paus@micoks.net>]

So really, there is no foolproof, absolutely safe way to keep a horse
enclosed or tied.

chris paus & star

At 02:38 PM 1/16/98 -0800, Lucy C Trumbull wrote:
>With all this talk about picket lines being the
>safest way to go, I'm sorry to have to come up
>with a bad picket line story (that's the trouble
>with this sport - for every "this is a safe thing
>to do" story, there'll be 20 people who's cousin's
>friend's auntie got killed doing it....)
>
>The guy who runs the barn where I board regularly
>takes him horses on hunting trips every year. They
>ride out into the middle of nowhere in the woods,
>fix up a picket line, and then go off an do their
>hunting thing.
>
>This year, he left his steady horse Lala tied up like
>this. As I understand it, Lala is a sensible horse,
>is used to being on a picket line and not prone to
>panicking... well, Lala somehow managed to truss himself
>up like a chicken and was in a very bad state, with many
>rope cuts, by the time they returned. 
>
>I have no idea how this happened - whether the picket line
>was incorrectly set up, the horse was allowed too close
>to the tree (I think a tree was involved somewhere in
>there), whatever. I imagine the guy has been doing this
>for years and years and this is the first time he'd had
>problems.
>
>So, with this in mind - be careful what you do, use your
>imagination extra-hard to think up creative ways your
>horse will hurt himself (afterall, you know that he will
>spend that quiet time, not munching innocently on hay, 
>but scheming to himself), and keep an eye on them.
>
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>Lucy Chaplin Trumbull - elsie@calweb.com
>Displaced English person in Sacramento, CA
>
>http://www.calweb.com/~trouble
>http://www.calweb.com/~elsie
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
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