loose horses on the road

["Michelle Rowe" <michrowe@frontier.net>]

On one of my best training routes, I go down a county road past some pastured horses (3 of them).  It gives me access to miles of quiet dirt roads.  One of the horses jumped the fence when I went past on a ride - the fence is a whole 28" high.  There's nothing illegal about loose horses or bad fences in Colorado.  Sheriff and Animal Control and Brand Inspector can't do anything about it.  I talked to the person who owns the horses and she said they would fix their fence, but it's not fixed three weeks later.  My solution of late has been to GALLOP by and hope the horses are so distracted they don't have time to jump the fence, but that's really not a good long term solution (though it's worked so far).  Anyone dealt with this before?

 

The horse that jumps the fence is two and not well trained.  She's really hard to handle  - especially with two excited horses and I'm kind of worried about getting kicked, especially if the other two horses figure out they can jump the fence, too.  The worst part is the county road crosses the highway about 100 yds from where the mare jumps the fence.  She could get caught in the fence, get hit by a car... It's bad juju.

 

I thought about carrying a water gun and spraying the horse when she tries to jump the fence - if you can't beat 'em, train 'em.  I'd be pissed if someone did that to my horse, but I don't know what power I have to resolve this situation other than not ride on the road.  :-) 

 

Suggestions welcome!  I'd also like to hear how people deal with loose horses they encounter on rides.

 

m