Yesterday Josh and I decided to go for a ride while we waited on my friend, Anna, that was coming to visit from Auburn. I already had Flint out and saddled up from riding before Josh got there, so I called for the mares and grabbed SoBe for him. We saddled her up and headed out. Not even 10 minutes into our ride we got the bright idea of riding along the creek.
We went down to the creek and I took Flint down first and turned around and told Josh "It's really sinky!" he said "stinky? Why?" "No! It's Sinky!" and by the time I could say lets just turn around and go back SoBe had gone full fledge toward the water. She sunk down and fell forward, so I yelled to Josh to get off of her but he couldn't. She kept falling forward as she struggled to get her footing and then ended up falling over in the mud. She got her legs caught in some tree roots that restrained her from being able to move.
I started freaking out. SoBe is my baby. She was our first foal and this horse means everything to me. She's the one that everyone rides. I couldn't stand the thought of losing her that way. Josh, of course, was calm and was trying to get me calm. Well, that wasn't really happening. I was crying and screaming, I couldn't think of what I needed to do. I just begged her to get up.
I kept pushing her trying to help her get up and pulling on her legs trying to get them out from under the roots. She would try to get up and just groan and lay back down and close her eyes. It was awful. I kept getting handfuls of water out of the creek and putting them in her mouth and when I did that she would struggle to get up.
I finally got her legs moved to where she needed them to be able to get up. She got upright and jumped up and turned toward the hill and sunk back down again. At least she was upright... and eating on a bush. Thats when I knew she was going to be ok.
One of her back legs was sunk all the way down into the mud and the other was free. Her front legs where out in front her her. She finally boosted herself up and was standing. She stood there for what seemed like forever. I took the bridle off of her so she could do it on her own. She ate some more leaves and started walking a bit and finally got on solid ground. She walked back up the little deer trail to the top of the hill where Flint was anxiously waiting. She followed us all the way to the house, saddleless and bridleless. Instead of going to the feed bucket she followed us all the way to the front door. We washed all the mud off her her, gave her a big meal and put her out to the pasture.
I took this picture when we were walking back up to the house. She looks so tired with her poor head hanging so low. I don't know if you can see all the mud, but there was a lot of it! I thought it was really neat she followed us up to the front door... she knew we were trying to help her!
This is where she was stuck. Her left front knee was stuck under that biggest root.
I think that this was the scariest thing I have ever been through! I'm just glad she didn't break one of her legs. I was scared that her front left was broken for the first 10 min. It would just flop back and forth when you moved it. But, she's ok!
Anna and I just came back from our fairgrounds where there was a livestock show and as we were coming down the driveway I was blowing the horn to get them to come up to the fence. SoBe was the first one to start running, like always! She was bucking and jumping all over the place. So glad she is ok!
