'An Incident'
Things were going well, so we authorized another month of training to follow through with our trail plan. Two weeks later, we received the "dreaded phone call"; our trainer called to report an incident.
Rick and the Amish boy had been trail riding on a regular schedule. The day of the ordeal, the trainer, aboard a mare and the boy, aboard PassU, were walking down a laneway toward the trails. A group of in-heat mares galloped to the electric fence line to introduce themselves to our young stallion.
Rick commanded the boy to get after PassU and move forward. The stallion mistook the boy's cuing and backed into the electric fencing on the other side of the laneway. Bzzzt!
PassU spun and bolted back toward the barn minus the young Amish rider.
When they got back, the stallion was standing in the center of the arena in the 100-degree heat, waiting for guidance. Rick saw that the horse didn't seem to be traumatized by the encounter with the fence, so he decided to put him on a longe line to make sure he wasn't injured.
That's when PassU did something totally out of character. Before the line was firmly in Rick's hand, the horse bolted to the end of the barn, which was stacked to the rafters 60-feet deep with fresh hay. The horse, fully tacked with 20 feet of longe line chasing him, vanished from sight.
Wide-eyed, Rick assessed the situation. Our spatially challenged 4-year-old had run headlong into the bale-width air space at the edge of the haystack. Rick found the stallion, sweating but calm, 50 feet back, solidly wedged between the hay and the wall. To free him, they'd first need to remove the full-skirted Western saddle.
The young boy also recognized the severity of the situation. Small-statured, he volunteered to be lowered by his feet into the space and unbuckle the cinch. He moved slowly, while speaking calmly to reassure PassU. The stallion, trusting his rider, didn't move. He permitted the boy to lift the saddle in a way it had never been done before.
That done, the boy climbed down the haystack to the horse, snapped a lead rope on the bridle, and gave the command, "Back, back, back, PassU, back!"
PassU recognized the command and started to shimmy his way in reverse toward the entrance to the hay crevasse. It took some time, but little by little, PassU worked himself out of his tight situation.
A Display of Trust
Rick told us that he was amazed by the trust PassU displayed for humans. The stallion escaped relatively unscathed with minor injuries. His side had brush burns from the hay. He also received rope burns on his pasterns as he backed against the longe line while exiting his tight quarters. But he wasn't lame; Rick was able to ride him the following day.
On the surface, credit must be given to the trainer and the young rider for safely extricating our horse from the hay. Our training and ground work that developed the stallion's trust in people was undoubtedly another factor. Vanessa also believes that the even temperament she found in PassU's lineage came out in the horse's reaction to the crisis situation.
When we tell this amazing story around the campfire, one word is always repeated by our fellow trail riders: "luck." In any analysis, our boy survived, and for that we're thankful.
PassU, like all our horses, came into our lives for a reason. Vanessa and I enjoy the time we spent together training him and reinforcing his respect and trust for people. The hay incident taught us the value of time we invested working with him.
PassU makes us look into our future as our retirement years approach. Now, as a coming 6-year-old, he's no longer a "Baby Huey." He's our well-bred, dependable stallion who's easy to handle, fun to ride, and enjoyable to breed.
Besides, there's something about raising a stallion that keeps Vanessa and me feeling young.
