Thanks for the help!

["Mike and Laurie Hilyard" <PFmorabs@toast.net>]

I had a disaster at White River Summer 25LD this last weekend.  On leaving the trailer, my horse somehow got the lead rope wrapped around his leg.  The only thing he hates worse than a late meal is a rope around his leg, so he took off, and instead of sensibly charging through camp and upsetting everyone until he could be caught, he headed out on the trail.  He was spotted here and there for the first 15-20 minutes of his adventure, first south of the camp, then along a road, then north of the camp.  After about a 5-7 mile flat out run, he dropped off the face of the planet.  He came out of the trailer at 4:20 pm.  By 10 that night, my husband and I gave up looking for him and took our very tired and cranky 2 year old to bed in the gooseneck.  We had called the county sherriff and explained about the horse, but as a local homeowner said - There isn't much to stop him between here and Traverse City, other than the Muskegon River.   We figured it would be one of three things - he was loose in the woods, and would follow the 100 milers in when they finished (best case scenario), he had gotten out of the woods and we hadn't found his tracks (he would have been at the Muskegon by 10 pm), or he had fractured something and was dead or couldn't move.  We decided to give it one last shot before going home on Sunday morning.  There were no tracks leading out of the area where he had been last seen - at least not on the 2 tracks coming out of the woods.  Of course, you are talking an area about 4 miles on a side.  We went to the actual place where he had last been seen and my husband walked to the river while I held our sleeping baby.  On the way, he saw a deer that instead of taking off when it saw him, kept staring over its left shoulder.  Mike backtracked and found a grassy two track that had, wonder of wonders, one set of horse tracks going at a run.  He followed the tracks till the two track ended (about 100 yards) and then on through a very tight deer trail.  A few yards down the deer trail  the terrain dropped about 80 feet down to a creek.  Mike discovered this when he walked off the edge fighting through the thick vegetation.  While he was picking himself up, he heard something and called Revvy's name - and got an answer.  He crashed through a few more bushes and found Revvy  standing in mud that was hock deep, his lead rope wrapped 8-10 times around a log 4 inches in diameter and 8 feet long, that he was standing over lengthways.  He was about 10 feet from the creek on the far side from Mike.  Mike crossed the creek on a fallen log that was right beside the horse and untangled the rope.  Revvy then gratefully lunged out of the mud and back up the "Snowy River" slope with Mike hanging on to his lead rope.  Revvy, of course, took the trail, but since Mike figures his feet only touched the ground twice on the way up, it didn't matter he was being dragged through the bushes.  Mike led him back to camp - believe it or not, he was sound at a walk - and we had Rae Birr DVM give him a once over.  He had a rope burn on his left front fetlock and a gouge on his left rear cannon, but apparently the mud poltice he was standing in all night didn't do any damage.  When turned out after he got home, he rolled about ten times and trotted sound before tearing off to the far side of the pasture (after a loooooooong drink).  (He'd refused water at the ride site.)  

 

And that's the story.  I'd like to give special thanks to Rae Birr, and to Bryan Redman, Andrea Redman's sister (whose name I didn't catch), Wayne Gastfield,  and the others who helped us look but whose names I don't know.  I would also like to thank whatever Horse God Revvy was praying to that made that deer stand there until my husband got the message.  I hate to think what would have happened. . .  Thank you all (and the Human God I was praying to!)

 

Laurie