Trauma with Liberty

Rod Burgess was a good friend of mine, about my age, and had done a lot of mustang chasing in his life. He loved horses and raised quarter and thoroughbred race horses. Some of his horses did well on the track but like most critters the majority qualified only as saddle horses so we did a lot of trading back and forth over the years. I liked a good saddle horse and he had high quality stock. We got some good ones and some not so good.

Liberty bought a nice looking chestnut sorrel that had a little red roan color to him. He had a well muscled body, about 16 hands high, and a friendly disposition, but was sort of timid around other horses. Liberty hoped he would make her "dream horse." But horses are individuals like people and like people few are willing to reach for their full potential, so it was with Larry. She trained and worked with him a long time, but he did most things reluctantly. She thought her training skills were at fault so took him to Connie Bowler, a professional horse trainer. He told her that some horses just don't have the drive or determination to make a good, well reined, using animal. He would try him for a week and if he didn't work out he would tell her so. After the week was up she brought him home but there was no noticeable change.

One of Rod's friends from Lehi, Utah, hauled a 15 year old Welch pony stud to our place and dumped him off. They were tired of feeding him and couldn't give him away up north. He was a good traveler, with a good people disposition, but made a lot of fuss and noise around other horses. Castration generally quiets a stud down so I carefully performed the operation, making sure to take all the cord and nodules out that might otherwise leave him "proud cut." It did not seem to affect him in the least. It requires several months for that urge to breed to leave their systems.

One morning a fellow from over toward Toquerville called to say that a Belgium mare and that stud-pony-used-to-be were in his corral and would I please come get them. Liberty was home and Larry was the only saddle horse in the corral, so I asked her to ride over and lead them home. I drove over in the pickup to put halters on them in readiness for when she got there. They were in a little makeshift corral made from wooden pallets tied to steel posts. The Belgium's tail had been cut off when she was a filly and only a small bunch of tail hairs grew from her butt, not enough to hold a tie rope. The pony-stud's tail was bushy so I tied the mare to his tail. He weighted about 600 pounds and she about 1800 pounds, which made the leading order backwards, weight-wise. When going out of the corral gate she decided she didn't want to go, so went backward at an angle, dragging him along the fence line to wipe out the front side of the corral. I straightened things out and led them up a sloping driveway towards the road above.

When Liberty arrived I handed her the lead rope of the has-been stud pony. Larry was afraid of him so wouldn't move forward as he should have done and Liberty failed to spur him. Stud-pony walked around in front of Larry, then turned on the left side toward Larry's rear and began to pull on the Belgium's lead rope, who was on the right side of Larry, bringing the rope hard across Liberty's right leg. I grabbed the Stud's halter and was trying to get him back on the other side. Liberty should have backed Larry up and got out of the mess but she couldn't get him to move.

About then that dumb big mare reared up and placed her enormous front feet on each side of Liberty with her hard head pushing against Liberty's right shoulder, about to push her out of the saddle. Liberty should have gotten off then. The Belgium got back down and began pulling back so the lead rope was hard across Liberty's leg again. I was trying to make

the pony back up and the old mare was pulling on him so he was pulling the other way. Pretty soon, all 3 horses fell into a 3 foot ditch next to the road. Larry and the mare were both laying on their bellies. I got my dull pocket knife out to cut that 1/2 inch nylon tie rope but it wouldn't touch it. I was afraid the horses would start to flounder in an effort to get up and hurt Liberty bad since she couldn't get out of the saddle. I held a hand on Larry's head and one on the Belgium while the man who owned the place finally got his knife out and was able to cut the rope in two.

When Liberty's leg was released she jumped out of the saddle and ran down the hill a hundred feet or so. She was really scared. She thought she was going to be killed in the mix-up. I guess that's why she didn't get Larry to back up and if I had been thinking smart I would have been making him back up instead of struggling with that dumb pony stud-once-was. The entire mix-up didn't last over a minute or so, but it seemed like a long time to me and probably to Liberty, also.

After all the trauma was over I was really mad at that dumb Larry. With Liberty's spurs on my boot heels I mounted up on him and tried to bring blood as I made that son of a gun move like he should have. Liberty drove the truck home and I led those 2 strays and you can bet your boots old Larry was moving like he ought to.