Brake broke the break
Aug. 20th, 2007 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziSunday was supposed to be the day the horses went on their annual vacation. As usual, the plan was to do all 3 trail rides, the third being smaller than usual, running trailer loads of horses up to Don's place throughout the day until just the last trail horses were left for the last load.
Unfortunately, the dually, which is the only vehicle with a hitch to haul the gooseneck trailer, decided that it was time to start flashing its brake warning light. While trailer's electric brakes would likely have been enough to cover for anything but a total failure of the truck's brakes, it wasn't worth the risk to try. It looks like Wednesday is the new target for the vacation to start. While the horses don't know any better, I feel sorry for them, since they're losing 3 days of their time off.
To add insult to injury, they had to spend last night in the dirt pasture at the barn instead of the grass pasture. We'd let the trail horses loose in the grass pasture and opened up the gate to let the rest down there when Don remembered the county had been down cutting the grass, vines, and other vegetation along the fence at the bottom of the pasture on Friday. Since they can be less than gentle, Don went down to have a look. Good thing he did, because there were a couple spots where the fence had been banged up a bit and a horse could get over without much trouble. If the horses had gone on their vacation, it wouldn't have been a pressing issue.
So we all went down and herded the hoofers back up into the dirt pasture. That wasn't easy since the horses were confused as heck by it. They're used to two things when they're in the pasture: going down through the gate from the dirt to the grass and going out a different gate when running in from the grass to the barn. Going up through the gate from grass to dirt (as a group) isn't something they're accustomed to. As a result, they kept wanting to run over to the gate to go back to the barn. After a bit, Lynn managed to catch Cascade's (the bossmare) halter and lead her up through the gate. That got a couple of her friends to follow and the rest of the herd soon followed with Pumpkin and Mickey taking up the rear. I got the gate closed and we made sure there weren't any stragglers. The horses ran around a bit in the upper pasture until they calmed down. Kinda sucks that they had to be up there and eat hay instead of grass, but it's better than one or more of them getting loose.
Unfortunately, the dually, which is the only vehicle with a hitch to haul the gooseneck trailer, decided that it was time to start flashing its brake warning light. While trailer's electric brakes would likely have been enough to cover for anything but a total failure of the truck's brakes, it wasn't worth the risk to try. It looks like Wednesday is the new target for the vacation to start. While the horses don't know any better, I feel sorry for them, since they're losing 3 days of their time off.
To add insult to injury, they had to spend last night in the dirt pasture at the barn instead of the grass pasture. We'd let the trail horses loose in the grass pasture and opened up the gate to let the rest down there when Don remembered the county had been down cutting the grass, vines, and other vegetation along the fence at the bottom of the pasture on Friday. Since they can be less than gentle, Don went down to have a look. Good thing he did, because there were a couple spots where the fence had been banged up a bit and a horse could get over without much trouble. If the horses had gone on their vacation, it wouldn't have been a pressing issue.
So we all went down and herded the hoofers back up into the dirt pasture. That wasn't easy since the horses were confused as heck by it. They're used to two things when they're in the pasture: going down through the gate from the dirt to the grass and going out a different gate when running in from the grass to the barn. Going up through the gate from grass to dirt (as a group) isn't something they're accustomed to. As a result, they kept wanting to run over to the gate to go back to the barn. After a bit, Lynn managed to catch Cascade's (the bossmare) halter and lead her up through the gate. That got a couple of her friends to follow and the rest of the herd soon followed with Pumpkin and Mickey taking up the rear. I got the gate closed and we made sure there weren't any stragglers. The horses ran around a bit in the upper pasture until they calmed down. Kinda sucks that they had to be up there and eat hay instead of grass, but it's better than one or more of them getting loose.