Scariest night of my life.

Anyone want 3 horses? They are free.

Last night we had some runaways. It was honestly one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me in my life. I don’t even know what happened other than they were in our temporary pasture/arena when one of the dogs scared them and before I knew it I was watching Duke completely ungracefully leaping over the fence bringing the entire electric rope with him. He actually dragged it down the road with him. A couple hundred feet of it. So off he went followed by his buddies Piney and Pistol.

They were off like a bunch of racehorses. Hubby caught sight of them a few miles down the road in a corn field. Piney and Duke had ditched Pistol on the side of the road. But as soon as pistol caught sight of the other two he was on the run again. Piney was the easiest to catch and he ended up turning himself in. I think it was because he’d hurt himself and was wanting to go home. He was limping pretty bad and of course he’d hurt his bad leg. I looked him over and noticed blood on the inside of his right hoof. Fan-freaking-tastic. There goes our trail ride in a few weeks. Obviously I am worried about him, but we have a trip we’ve been planning for a really long time that is probably going to be canceled now. When I had him looked over I was still in panic mode and didn’t really know what to do or who to call. Pistol and Duke were now long gone and out of my sight. Hubby was on their trail. I was out in the middle of no where with my horse. So I called my farrier who lives about 10 miles away and asked him what I should do. I don’t really know many horse people in the area and he knows everyone. I was in a no cell phone service area when talking to him and my calls kept getting dropped. Awesome.  My cellphone battery was also almost nonexistent. Super awesome. I was losing day light and starting to freak out more with every passing minute.  I decided to call 911 and let them know that there were loose horses. They said they’d let the deputies know and took my phone number just incase anyone saw them they could give me a call.
SO there I was on the road with a lame horse miles from home. I decided to try and drive my car and lead him along with the window open. He was doing great, we were going about 0.5 mph but we were headed in the right direction. Then all of a sudden he stops, dead in his tracks and I am still holding on. I have a nice baseball sized bruise on my arm that is brewing away. I got out and tried to get him going. Nope not happening. By this point I’m in tears. Like absolutely bawling. I was sobbing, and shaking, and swearing. Then I looked down the road and saw my farrier’s truck. He hopped out and took a look at Piney’s feet. The blood I saw…no clue where that came from. He didn’t have any cuts anywhere on his hoof, leg or even his body. So strange. He picked his feet and checked for any tenderness nothing. He had some gravel in his feet but nothing majorly wrong with his feet. He thinks happened was that he was running like a madman across the countryside in all kinds of footing and just kind of twisted his bad foot. We got him walking and then my farrier said that he was going to go search for the other two creeps. I’ve never had a farrier as nice as this one. I am so thankful to have him be as kind and helpful as he is.

So off Piney and I went on our 3 mile journey home. I was looking super fashionable in my black and white striped maxi skirt, tank top, and moccasins, clutching my little blue feed bucket “purse” and a must have fashion item of the year…a big lame OTTB gelding. I almost wish someone would have been there to take pictures. But at the time it wasn’t funny. At.all. We kept trucking and hubby was off hunting down the other two. It took an extremely long time for us to get home. As I was getting closer to home my farrier pulled up next to me. Daylight was almost gone, and I know farriers don’t have the luxury of sleeping in so I told him he could take off for home if he wanted too. He told me he’d wait for me to get Piney into the pasture and then he’d bring me back to my car. He told me that he called a bunch of people in the area and told them to keep their eyes open for two red horses. He also told me that he’d been talking to my husband as well as my neighbors. He also stopped by a few of his client’s houses and asked them to try and catch the fugitives and maybe keep them contained if they were able to catch them until we were able to come pick them up. He was also telling me stories of escaped horses that he’d had, as well as stories of his clients escaped horses. It made me feel better to realize that my horses aren’t the only ones to ever escape.

Our neighbors down the road, the same ones that had to tow me out of the ditch last winter had joined in on the search. Apparently I’m THAT neighbor that needs help all the time. Hubby had been talking to them, and they let him know that they were able to catch the two outlaws about 7 miles south east of our home. They had managed to halter one of them but the other was following along nicely. We caught up with the neighbors about 4 hours after our search had begun. One of them was sitting on the tailgate of their pickup and leading Duke, while Pistol followed along behind them. We did the hand off and I thanked them a million times over. And we were off, slowly and surely we were going to get home. We had only been on the road a few minutes when the Neighbors pulled up and asked if they wanted us to go get their trailer and haul them home for us. The horses were pretty tired and Pistol was pretty sore up front. We weren’t sure how it was going to go as Duke has been a real creep about loading, but we figured we’d give it a go.

I figured they would show up with a truck and their stock/combo trailer. Nope. They pulled up with a brand new BEAUTIFUL gooseneck, living quarters 3 horse slant. That they had just picked up today. I whispered in Dukes ear, “if you kick the crap out of this trailer, I will chop off your legs”. I was honestly not expecting them to load. I mean we were out in the middle of nowhere, it was 11:30 the horses had been crap heads all night. I had a bleak outlook on things. The neighbors son was able to halter Pistol and then load him effortlessly into the trailer. My jaw dropped. Next was Duke…yeah right. good luck kid! Duke leaped right in. Are you flipping KIDDING ME?! The horse has never been in a slant load. In.his.life. Moral of the story my horses load well, in trailers that cost more than my house. I am sure that the bright white interior and well lit interior of the trailer helped. I am thinking that maybe we should further investigate the idea of buying a new trailer, we’d be making payments until we died, but if it meant stress free, easy hauling of the horses it would be worth it.

So we got the outlaws home at midnight. They were happy to be home, I was happy they were home. We are going to make more permanent fencing for them so we don’t have a repeat of last night in the near future. I am ashamed of my horses and mad at them, but they are horses, they just thought they were being attacked and did what their pea sized brains told them to do in order to survive. Lesson learned. We got our horses back in the same day they left. Our negibhours told us about when they once had horses escape they hired a spray plane to search for them for three days to try and find them. I’m glad it didn’t come down to that!

Hopefully the horses will stay put for a long while. But I am so very grateful for everyone that helped out. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it wasn’t for them. I was worried for my boys, but I was even more worried about someone cruising down a dark country road with a van full of kids and smashing right into my tank of a horse. I don’t know what I’d do knowing that my horses hurt or killed someone. I’m just glad those creeps are home safe and sou….well not sound, but safe anyways! Nothing like a jail break to make you feel like the crappiest horse owner in the entire world. I told hubby a few times last night that I wanted them gone. All three of them. I didn't care where they went as long as they were gone forever. I am more stable now and I realzie that I don't want them gone. but often in times of great stress I do want nothing to do with them. Life would be easier without them but I'm not sure it would be worth it.