Linked by Fugly Horse of the Day and originally found at the Chronicle of the Horse forums, here: http://chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=140462
Posted by "The Prince"
PART 1: I'll start by saying the OTTB is fine, none of the people,
horses, or cow-dogs involved were physically harmed (except the Asshat
driver) Emotional scars will take much longer to heal.
Growing up on a ranch, I was the odd-man-out. I took a lot of good
natured ribbing from friends and family about my "weird obsession"
(hunt seat and hunter over fences) So, I have a certain fondness for
english horses and that's part of the reason I come here-cause y'all
understand!
I guess "we" have this one OTTB mare that I used to take eventing
lessons on (oh we were like BN level-but I digress) She was good at it,
but she hated dressage and stadium, so I gave her to my sister to use
as a tag-along cow-horse for the kids. She is a rock solid, enormous
hearted mare that actually loves working cows.
Fast forward 13 years or so. She's getting older, and the youngest kid
is outgrowing her. Being a working ranch, we're not rich, and we can't
afford to keep sentimental attachments to horses or cows-we'd never
sell a horse to the meat buyer, rather we do what ranchers have always
done-find a family with young kids that need a steady Eddie and sell
the horse on. Just about ready to do that with the heroine of today's
story.
The snow has all but melted, the grass is green and thick, the calves
are born and branded, and the herd is ready to turn out to summer
range. Being a small ranching community, we tend to help eachother
out-so this past weekend we all got together to help our neighbours
turn their herd out-with the plan that next weekend we'd all turn our
family's cows out.
Friday we moved the cows down to dad-in-law's place, so that early sat
morning we could start out right down the highway. We had about 12
miles to go with approx 750 pair (a pair is one cow and her calf) We
had one person following in the truck and trailer with the very young
calves, two people on quads working the 4 stock dogs, and 6 people on
horses.
Everyone in the town knows that this is an open range community-and
everyone knows that on or about the middle of march the rangelands open
for turnout. It's published in the paper "Keep an eye out for herds on
the move, drive with caution" etc.
Have you ever had one of those feelings that something isn't quite
right? The night before we set out, sis and I drove the route, making
sure all the road signs noting "CAUTION, OPEN RANGE" were up, legible,
and had orange flags waving at the top. We washed the stock trailer and
hung the "CAUTION, SLOW MOVING CATTLE DRIVE AHEAD" magnetic signs on
the back door. We made sure all the rifles were loaded, put the air
emergency horn in the stock truck, called the sheriff's dept and
notified them that we would be on the highway from X to X time.