From: rewald@stsci.edu
Subject: Swamp Thing (long!)
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 22:05:41 GMT

Hello all - this is a long! post

Shogun and I had a rough Halloween.  We went to New Jersey to do our first 
50 mile competition. (30 miles on saturday, 20 miles on sunday).

The first day was great; I thought he was looking and feeling good
afterwards. He was happy and eating and drinking just fine saturday. 
Sunday, he was a  little surprised that we were going out again, but after
the first few miles to warm up, he was all happy and moving along well. 
(We made 10 miles in the first hour, and we had 3 hours to do all 20
miles!)  12 miles into sunday's ride, we had a problem.  My two friends and
I came to a nice waterhole that  we had been in on Saturday.  It has a
pretty gravel bottom, and absolutely  clear water.  I wanted Shogun to cool
off a little, so I let him walk along the creek.  

Little did I know that it was a BOG!  Along the edge of the pretty gravel
was about a 3 inch strip of grassy stuff growing on the bottom.  Just past
that strip, there was no bottom!  Shogun stepped off into water past his
shoulders!  (we had been wading in 6 inches of water). He lurched,
unfortunately forward, and kept getting stuck deeper.  I had gotten off,
and I sank up to my hips.  He took about 5-6 lurches and finally was in so
deep that he was laying with one front leg sticking straight down into the
mess and the rest of him on top of the surface.  My friends and I were
yelling back and forth; we couldn't see each other through the trees.  More
riders came, and came  in to help us.  Some one called ride management, and
a guy with a walkie-talkie came, and called for 5-6 strong guys to come,
in case we  had to lift Shogun up.  We were near a road in the park, and
some guys in a truck stopped to see if they could help.  They had  some
long towing straps to lend us.  By this time, Shogun had gotten up and sunk
a couple of times.  We got his saddle and  stuff off one of the times he
was up, so he wouldn't get hung up on the trees.  He was finally standing 
on a tiny island, and the guys (by now about 5 riders had  caught up to us,
handed off their horses, and came into help) were looking for a solid path
to lead him on.  There wasn't one.  So they found some more tiny islands,  and
got him to leap though the yuck from one island to the next.  Finally, he
was out.  

It only took 25 minutes from the time we went in till he was out, but it
seemed like forever.  They sent a horse trailer out for us, and someone
gave us mover's blankets to cover him while we waited (he was cold and
wet).  But Shogun was so neat!  he acted like everything was ok, I walked him
around to warm him up, and as I took him down the trail a little way, his
ears perked up, his head came up, and he was looking waayy down the trail,
as if to say: "when are we going?"

Any how, he was a little stiff and sore later on, and had a few scrapes on 
his legs, but is overall in great shape.  He could even trot for me while 
I was leading.   The vet looked at him and said to give hime some bute that
night and tthe next day, but he was not lame, and the scrapes were no big
deal. Whew!

Oh yeah, the riders who came in to help us all finished the ride when they
were supposed to, some even got good placings! I was stiff and sore all
over, including my throat from shouting! (But I was glad my horse was ok!)

This isn't meant to be a bad reflection on the management of the ride; I
think that most people from around there probably would have recognised the 
potential danger.  (Just like most folks wouldn't walk off the edge of a
cliff, but someone who had never seen such a thing might not recognise
one.)  I guess I mostly want to warn people about being REALLY carefull
when they ride in an unfamiliar area.  Where I ride and train, it's pretty
rocky, and streambeds tend to be very hard.  This ride was in the Pine
Barrens and the terrain was very different.  It's only a 4 hour trailer
ride, but what a difference!

Sorry this got so enormous, but I wanted to tell this story, and give some
solutions (curative and preventative).  Thanks for listening.

See ya later!    Rosalie & Shogun
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian