A lesson learned the hard way....

It was a beautiful fall day yesterday, so Brenda and I decided to pack the horses up and head over to Alum Creek for a little trail riding. We decided to try the northern trails again as we had a good ride there a couple of weeks ago.

When I got Rio out of the field, I discovered that she had lost a shoe AGAIN! No idea how or where...sigh. There was an extremally twisted nail sticking out of the side of her hoof..this was all that remained. Brenda managed to get the nail out. We tried to see if Brenda's new Easy Boots (bought at QH Congress of course) would fit Rio's foot, but it was too small.
We decided to go anyway as it was one of the last remaining nice days predicted for this week. Rio would be fine as the trails weren't rocky and would most likely be somewhat soft.

Once we got there we tacked up and got ready to head out. Last time we went we got to the other side of the trail by going over a roadway bridge where cars go somewhat fast. This bridge goes over part of the river. We went down to the river to see if there was a way to cross over and get to the other side by going through the water. The water was low and not very deep. We figured we could do it...plus it was a bit of a challenge to see if the horses would cross it without a fuss.

The lesson here is that looks are deceiving...the banks of the river looked to be solid...but the water was down and the sides were essentially deep, sandy mud. We got down to the river and walked over to the side to try and enter the water at the shallowest point. As Rio and I walked over to what I thought was solid ground, she sunk up to her hock....it was like quicksand. Needless to say, she tried to get out of there as fast as she could and headed for the bank. As she tried to scramble up the bank, she sunk deeper. She could not get her back or front legs under her to get up the bank. She tried (for what seemed like an eternity) as I hung on and gave her her head as best I could. At one point she was essentially down on her knees, ready to fall over on her side. This is when I dumped over her right side and landed on the ground.

Rio managed to get up the bank and out of the "quicksand". She was right by me and could have easily landed on me (or fallen on me) but she saw me there on the ground and stopped moving. She stood there calmly, breathing a bit heavily as I got up off the ground. I landed on soft ground and really didn't fall far since she was already halfway to the ground, so I was fine.
Rio was favoring her back leg at that point...not putting too much weight on it. I was worried that she had twisted it coming out of the mud.

We walked her a bit and she was still favoring the back leg. We decided to head back to the barn and see if it got any better with some water therapy and liniment. I gave her Bute before we got back in the trailer. She was still as calm as could be and didn't seem fazed by the incident...what a good horse. The positives are that we were not far from the trailer when it happened and that the barn was five minutes away.

Once we got her home we put water on the leg for 10-15 minutes. I rubbed liniment on it and then turned her out with Doc. One of the other horses in the larger field keeps chasing her around. I didn't want her to be chased around if her leg was injured, so we turned her and Doc out into the side field. They were content and happy when we left.

So the moral of the story is to always check the ground around a stream/river bank before you try and cross it. We really came out of it as positively as possible. If she had panicked, we could have been in big trouble. She could have injured herself in a worse way or have fallen on me trying to get out. It all turned out well..the trail horse angels were looking out for us. I am thankful that we all came home safe and sound. What a weird thing to happen on just a routine day.