With hunt season over, I’m an easy target for event organizers that are constantly drafting “volunteers” to perform all the mundane but necessary chores involved in staging a successful event. Today, I was arm-twisted into timing for a hunter pace. I was even offered the opportunity to ride early before I commenced my labor if I wanted to. That was a tempting option, especially since my farrier would be there to replace Arthur’s missing right front shoe. But my fraternal riding buddy didn’t seem interested, and with ominous chances of rain in the forecast, I decided against trying to try to find somebody else willing to ride with me that wouldn’t be pissed if I wimped out at the last minute. So I went for the all work, no play option.
As it turned out, it would have been a good day to ride. The rain held off until late evening, well after I was snug and safe at home. It was cold and windy all day, but that just would have made sitting on a horse preferable to standing around with a stopwatch. I was thinking I had made the wrong decision until I saw the ambulance crew roll in, and then I realized it was a good thing I’d left Arthur at home. After seeing one of the paramedics, I’m sure my subconscious instincts would have kicked in to create some opportunity for medical attention. (Un)Fortunately, there wasn’t much opportunity for injuring myself with a stopwatch, at least not without looking like such a fool that the purpose would be defeated.
Most of the day was enjoyable but unspectacular. There were some opportunities for amusement, such as the teams who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of a timed event. And of course there was ample time for swapping gossip with friends, some regular hunting companions and others that I don’t see often enough.
As the day was just about to wind up, the routine was broken by someone riding up and asking me to tell the boss lady that a horse was scrambling in a trailer with her front feet over the breast bar, and things were starting to look hairy. Maggie and I jumped in her Explorer and headed for the trailer, where other people were already start to gather. We found a horse lying in the front of a 2-horse straight-load, with back legs on one side of the center partition, front legs on the other side, and her head hanging out the front escape door. Fortunately, she had done no serious damage to herself in the process of getting in that position, and had quit struggling and was lying calmly, obviously unhappy but not in major distress. Unfortunately, getting her out of that position wasn’t going to be easy.
Front exit wasn’t really an option; trying that was what had gotten the horse into this mess. She needed to go back the way she came; easier said than done. The first task was to dismantle the trailer as much as possible. With a dozen hands pulling at anything that looked vaguely removable, the center partition was gone in no time. The front center pillar was more of a problem; it was welded in place and not intended to be removed. When I saw the farrier’s truck pull up, I was tempted to ask if he had a cutting torch. Realistically, burning steel that close to the horse wouldn’t have been a good idea. We just had to accept that the pillar was staying, and we needed to work the horse back around it.
We had no problem accumulating the ropes and muscle needed to manhandle 1000+ pounds of dead weight. Unfortunately, this weight was very much alive, with legs and a head that thrashed violently in objection to being tugged around. The struggles posed a slight risk to the rescue team, but everybody was alert and agile enough to avoid injury. The risk to the horse was greater; whenever the thrashing got dangerous, we could all jump out of harm’s way, but we just had to cross our fingers and hope she settled down before she injured herself.
We went through a few iterations of tugging and relaxing, getting a little closer to our goal each time. Then we were interrupted by a competitor who told us her husband, who was also riding, was a vet, and wondered if maybe we’d like him to help. He showed up with a box of goodies; the attitude adjustment provided by a half cc of IV Dormosedan made the task much easier.
After the drugs kicked in, a few more rounds of tugging got her back behind the center pillar, where she was able to scramble to her feet. She had a lot of bloody scrapes on her legs and face, but no major damage. She’s probably going to be sore for a while, but the 10 cc of IV Banamine the vet administered should help that.
It was only later that it occured to me that if I had gotten in the way of one of those thrashing hooves, I could have gotten treated by a cute paramedic without even the embarrassment of falling off a horse. Getting injured helping an animal has got to be worth a bunch of sympathy points. I guess it’s a good thing that I was too focused on the task during the rescue to think about stupid things like that.