This is a “vault” post. These are events that I made videos for but didn’t really make write ups for. So these write ups will not be as detailed as my recent events.
Excitment and Pivots
We loaded up all our gear and the ponies and started our drive to begin “The Great Florida Cattle Drive of 2022.” We were so excited and full of vim and vigour. Unbeknownst to us, this was going to be an exhausting, grueling week with some temper snaps and pivots on our plans.
Who are we? Well, it’s me and my main crew from where I board. Originally, when we had planned to do the cattle drive, we were going to have three horses (plus two we were meeting up with) and an additional horse pulling a wagon. About two weeks before the drive, we learned that the wagons take a totally different route than the single horses. So we now needed to bring an additional horse. That’s a tricky move for a week long ride when we’d been conditioning the horses we were going to bring and acclimating them to camping and sorting what horses could go with what who at night. Not to mention sleeping arrangements since the wagon was going to be one of the sleeping areas. But pivot we did.
To learn what the Great Florida Cattle Drive is, please read about it here!
On arriving to the registration, the line was long. We finally get checked in, throw our gear and horses out, set up the electric fencing and we think we have everyone settled. Amy and Rachel get in the truck and drive the trailer to the end point and wait for the shuttle to bring them back while Celeste, Suzanne, and I waited at camp with Hanna and Ashley (our two friends we were meeting up with).
Pssst, if you’re here for just the video, you can get to it here, but you really should read the post.
Enter Pivot #2. Hannah did not take the reccomendation of “two methods of containment” seriously. She thought she could rely on trees at every campsite and brought a highline and only a highline. A high line is a line strung up between two fixed points (posts, trees, etc) and the horse is tied to the line. There were no trees. No trees means nowhere for Hannah’s horse to be tied up.
Luckily, our circle boss had an extra spool of electric wire. This allowed two lines of electric wire to be run between two of the existing electric fence panels and be charged. Mocha now had a place to stay. The downside is with three corrals connected, that means if one goes down, they all go down. But thats an issue for another day. Literally.
Two pivots not enough? Here’s Pivot #3. The original plan involved four electric corrals. Spyro (Ashley’s) in one, Dolly (the cart horse) and Remington (Rachel’s) in one, Royal (Suzanne in one), and Roach in his own. Thanks to having to bring an additional horse, we now had to put yet another horse in a corral.
My corral is not sturdy enough for two horses that may or may not get along, so buddying with Roach was not considered. Since Remy, Dolly, and Skeeter (Amy’s and also the plus one) live together, figuring out the configuration made the most sense with them. Royal, unfortunately, was the only other horse with a suitable paddock and the horses’ were all familiar with each other.
It was decided to put old, lazy Skeeter in with Royal. He’s old, slow, lazy and gets along with every one. Problem solved.
Skeeter and his rusty, old Peeter
The problem wasn’t solved.
It turns out Royal was in season. Soon enough, Skeeter’s peeter was out and the two were trying to go at it like bunnies on the front lawn. We were dying of embarassment. Except for Suzanne. She’ll say she was so embrassed but while the rest of us were pretending to not know whose horses those were, she was hollaring, “That’s my horse!”
We didn’t know what to do. Our Ma and Pa (Rachel and Amy) were gone and left us kids with an unexpected situation. We decided to switch the horses and put Dolly with Skeeter and Royal with Remy. But then Skeeter beat the crap out of Dolly and we had to switch them back. By this time, old man Skeeter had used what remained of his energy and decided to take a snooze. Thank goodness.
That wasn’t even the first day of riding.
The Real Day One
Waking up and packing up that first morning was an exciting and stressful experience. Everyday of the cattle drive we had to pack and unpack camp. So, you have to juggle feeding your animal, tacking them up, packing all your gear and containment and taking all of it to the trailer that will transport it to the next camp site. It’s a little stressful. We were one of the last folks ready. But then we set off to the head of the group because lucky green circle got to be with the cows first.
The Importance of Preparation
We moved out to go find the cows. It was something else seeing how much or how little the horses were prepared for this adventure. Thankfully, our crew seemed well prepared. Roach took this as any other normal day riding and didn’t seemed that bothered by it nor did the other horses. Royal was a little uppity, but that’s normal Royal. Nothing unmanageable. Most of the horses seemed to be emotionally stable. But, some of these other horses were woefully ill-equipped mentally and emotionally.
These under prepared horses were lathered in sweat right at the get go. Nostrils flaring, eyes rolling, toes tapping, the one or two specifically I’m thinking of did not have the mental preparation for riding in a large group or in a new area. I don’t know, but my assumption based on the actions of the horse is that he was likely taken to shows, ran, and not much paid attention to as to his mental state when at these shows or exercised in being calm on trail rides.
I mention this in some of my endurance writings. These types of events are hard emotionally on a horse. Yes, we know what is happening but we have no way to convey that to our animal. Do your animal a favor and prepare him before you expect him to bahve appropriately.
Unfortunately, there were equine medical emergencies due to heat and colic. Unfortunately, I do believe some of the riders treated this as a trail ride instead of the undertaking it really is and their horses paid the price. I’m grateful my crew took it seriously and we put in the work in the prior months to prepare both ourselves and our animals, both physically and mentally, for a successful venture.
Cows are slow
One more time for those in the back: Cows are slow! I don’t remember how long this first day was, but like all our days, it was long. We were grateful to make it into camp. Thankfully, they fed us very well at camp although dinner was late and… No one was quite happy about that. However, the crowd was satisfied once we were all fed.
Enjoy the video, and look out for Day 2.
