When you tie up the horses at night and sleep in your tent, you never really sleep. You try to, but the fear that one of your kids or both will get loose, is too great. Especially when you have had bad experiences in the past.
Once, while crossing a Wyoming mountain, I awoke at 2 am with the sound of wood breaking followed by horses galloping. It was terrible. My heart almost stopped. I jumped out of my tent in underwear and boots to see that my three horses had broken the pole they were tied to and two of them were gone. One stood shaking, staring at the half-of-a-pole he was still tied to. It took me an hour to find the other two ponies.
In Mexico, Frenchie untied himself from a fence post one night and was run over by a truck. That was by far the worst experience of my life. I watched the truck hit him. Everything went into slow motion. I thought I was watching my boy die. Luckily he survived, but the traumatic experience left deep wounds on both horse and man. I still have nightmares about that night.
After leaving Rodrigo’s ranch, with no one to ask for help, I was for forced to camp by a river.
Needless to say, I woke up every 30 minutes worried, opened the tent’s door and used my flashlight to make sure the horses were still there. With every little noise, my heart jumped to my throat and my eyes shot open.
At 5:30 am, dead tired but unable to sleep any longer, wrapped in my anxiety, I decided to start my day. When I opened the tent’s door, I almost had a heart attack. Picasso was standing wide eyed, with his left front hoof stuck on the bottom wire of the fence. I quickly put my boots on and ran to his side.
When I arrived I tried to calm the big bay down as he pulled back on instinct trying to free his hoof. I inspected the problem and realized he was pawing at the ground and got the wire caught between the back of his shoe and hoof. When he pulled back the first time, the wire moved forward up to the last nail and the shoe closed behind it. Bending over, with my right foot on the wire, I used all of my strength to push his leg forward, trying to get the wire to come out the same way it went in. It was impossible. The shoe had closed back up in the back as if the wire had never entered. I tried and tried and tried but nothing. There was no way but to cut the wire, and I didn’t have pliers on me.
I tried to figure out a way to get the hoof out but nearly exhausted myself trying. Luckily, Picasso stood still and didn’t freak out. If he had, it could have left him seriously injured.
I came to the conclusion that the only way would be to borrow a set of pliers from someone who was driving by. But that early in the morning, there was no one on the country road I was next to. Standing in the middle of the dirt road I prayed for a vehicle to appear in the distance. I prayed for half an hour until finally a white truck came roaring up. I waved my arms and begged for the driver to pull over, he was skeptical at first, only slowing down at the last minute, but thankfully he did. He opened his window and I explained my predicament. An elderly gentleman with a head full of white hair, he got out of the vehicle and reached into a tool box in the back of the truck. When he handed me the rusty pliers, I wanted to kiss him.
I ran to Picasso’s side and began working on cutting the wire. It was not easy. The pliers were old and it took me several minutes to cut the metal. But eventually it gave and I was able to slip Picasso’s hoof free at last. As I stood I let out a large sigh of relief and patted my pony’s neck. He was okay.
