corrals and horses

[Teddy Lancaster <Teddy@runningbear.com>]

Just a note concerning camping and corrals....I
have heard (and many of you have) many disasters
with electric corrals.....here is another story
from the No Frills ride in April in Virginia:

" The night before the ride, at10:45 PM, 12 horses
stampeded.  They
found 10 right away, but 2 others just
disappeared.  The people who owned
them were from Pennsylvania.  They were
disconsolate, as most of us would
be.  The two horses ran down Hickory Lane and
where you turn right to go to
Edinburgh Gap, they ran right and got caught in a
bolder field-where they
remained for six days-without food or WATER.  The
owners offered a $2,000.00
reward, and a man whose wife is very ill and
needed the money found them.
One was OK, believe it or not, and the other was
in bad shape.  I know the
one is home.  The other was at Jeannie Waldron's
clinic.  My horse was only
three campsites from where they stampeded and left
the campground.

Between Rockbridge (where Many Ann Wates' horse
got out and cut itself on a
guard rail and was out for 2 years), the Big Horn
ride (where Valerie's Sony
ran through barbed wire and off a 40 foot cliff),
and this ride, I am going
to get some really good coral.  I use PVC now-it's
better than those little
electric fences, but it won't hold a horse that
really wants to leave."

Another customer of mine today ordered steel
corrals because his horses got hurt with electric
fence this past weekend...

Whether you get them from me or someone else, it
does not matter.  I just want more of you to know
that more and more disasters are being reported
with the use of electric corrals.  The State of
Indiana has already banned the use of electric
corrals on state land (several years ago in fact).

Be smart and find better ways to make your horse
safe and give yourself a good night's sleep.

Teddy Lancaster
http://runningbear.com