This message is from: "Gail Russell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi all,
You may remember that Rom was off at boot camp on an 8000 acre cattle ranch that goes UP and DOWN very steeply. Recently, his sensible behavior when in trouble may very well have saved the life of his rider. One day a few weeks ago Pete, the owner of the cattle ranch, was riding what he describes as "that crazy paint" that he is training for a woman who likes to buy inexpensive QH's/Paints in the Pacific Northwest and have Pete train them for her to sell on. Sometimes she does not make the best choice of horses. That day Pete's 12 year old son was riding Rom, and Pete's hired hand was riding another horse. They came to a large pool in a meadow that had grass growing in it. Thinking the bottom was flat, they took off across it. Well....it was not flat, and there must have been a steep drop off under the part they tried to cross. The first thing they knew, the paint horse was panicking and thrashing about because he had lost his footing. Initially, "Paint" reared up and plunged forward when he felt the drop off. Then Paint rolled onto his side, at which point Pete thought it best to kick free of the saddle. When Pete had come back to the surface he saw his son's face full of fear, and his son was calling out that the paint horse was trying to jump up onto Rom's back. Pete had just enough time to remember that his son was not at all a strong swimmer, when he realized that HE was in big trouble. He had gone in the water with pull-on cowboy boots on, complete with spurs and his jeans tucked into the top of his boots. I did not ask, but he may have had chaps on as well. The boots filled with water and began pulling Pete to the bottom. Pete figured he would just push himself off the bottom....but there was no bottom; this was a DEEP hole. Finally, he managed to pull his boots off underwater and got to the surface and attempted to head for shore. (They plan to go back for his boots and best pair of spurs in the fall when the pond dries out.) By this time his hired hand had gotten his horse to swim to shore and ran back in to save his boss, as his boss was completely exhausted, spitting up water and, when he finally got out, in the early stages of hypothermia. In the middle of all this, and while being threatened by a horse who thought climbing onto Rom's back was his only salvation, Rom decided, by himself, that he would just turn around and swim back the way he came. He must have done it without much fuss, because the boy was able to float along hanging onto him until Rom got his footing, and then was able to get in the saddle and ride him to shore. From Pete's point of view, Rom's cool behavior saved his son from what could have been a fatal situation. Aside from bragging about Rom, there is a moral to this story......*****Take care about getting near deep water with cowboy boots on. ******** They can fill with water and act like anchors. Pete's dangerous situation is not rare. A man drowned two weeks ago while trying to wade across the Russian River in jeans and cowboy boots. The current caught him, and he just sank. Even the people nearby were unable to get him out fast enough to save him. Oh....the other little piece of news is that three months of HARD work on a steep cattle ranch has done wonders for Rom's extended trot. We brought him back today and put him in a large paddock. Since he has been stalled at night, and either ridden hard or tied to a hitching rail waiting his turn during the day for the last three months, he was VERy happy to run around a bit. I happened to look out of the house at one point, and saw Rom doing a beautiful extended trot across the pasture. Gail Russell Forestville California
