Yesterday evening, I was allowing both horse some grazing time, and something spooked them both at the same instant.
Now, horses are large, strong and extremely powerful animals who nevertheless can panic and bolt at a rude gesture from a passing monarch butterfly.
So when you have a horse on a lead rope, and he or she decides to bolt, you do have a few choices:
1. You can hang on to the rope and be drug on the ground for... well, for as long as you want or can.
2. You can risk serious rope burn and try to slow down 900+ lbs. of force scampering off.
3. You can drop the rope, and rely on training and/or voice to cause the horse to stop and come back.
4. You can drop the rope, let the horse race, buck and run around until he gets tired enough to come back home.
Option 4 is normally the one I have to resort to.
And yesterday, my two horses actually did respond to my voice, came to a halt, and waited for me to catch up and get hold of the lead ropes.
Unfortunately, today both horses obviously remembered how much fun that unrestrained frolic has been and decided to take off again right when I opened the pasture gate to feed them.
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