Well, it started out as just a little Sunday drive. The idea was to find a home for a giveaway horse. Nice little gelding, named Laddie, and a friend of Gayles, Mary Kay knew a lady in Hatton that had a large horse operation and she agreed to take the horse. She has around 200 horses and well, at that point what’s one more.

She raises Percheron and Belgian horses crossed with thoroughbreds or quarter horses and comes out with large horses that are used for dressage (believe it or not) or riding horses, carriage horses, etc…

So we started out the day loading Laddie who was a little reluctant to get into the 2 horse trailer that Gayle had borrowed for the ride.

After a little work, the horse was loaded and we filled the suburban with kids, friends, granny, etc and we took off for Grand Forks.

Laddie was not liking the trailer ride, and there was a bit of bumping going around back there, nothing too unusual.

Then Gayle looked in the rear view mirror and someone behind her was flashing his lights at her and several other cars had come to a stop behind us.

Gayle slowed down and flipped a u turn while exclaiming, “Crap, the horse is out of the trailer!” We drove back and saw poor Laddie standing in the middle of the road. (220) He appeared a little confused but at least he was standing. Turned out he had somehow gotten the people door open on the front right side of the traler and had jumped out of that little door going 55 mph. I thought, he’s going to take off and we will never catch him, there were several cars stopped around him and could have spooked him. But he just stood there and Gayle walked right up to him, took him into the ditch too look him over. He has some hair scraped off and some nicks and small cuts on his legs, but surprisingly otherwise unhurt. We think he must have landed on the gravel and not the pavement. So Gayle and Mary Kay stayed with the horse while Kari and I and the kids, went back to the farm to switch for the bigger trailer, that Laddie had been in before.

Chris helped us to hitch up the bigger trailer and we took off again. We were on the St Hillarire road when the pickup in front of us slowed down and the guy was gesturing to us frantically. Then he pulled off the road and gestured for us to pass him, then he caught up to us in the other lane and kept pointing to the ditch. So we stopped and pulled off, tho’ he almost was a little scary, he came to Kari’s window and said..your trailer gate is open and swinging in the wind.

So we told him…that’s ok, we lost the horse already on 220.

So..got to the girls and Laddie, who was peacefully grazing in the ditch, he went right into the trailer, and we took him back to the farm…we will wait for a week or two until he heals up a little and the lady in Hatton still wants him.

At this point I was thinking we should all go home and stay in bed.

We decided to go to Hatton anyway. We saw so many horses. One pen had 2 Shetland Stallions, a bunch of Shetland Mares, and about 50 weanlings (draft/quarters or draft/thoroughbreds). Jason and Kari are both interested in a large horse that could pull a sleigh but yet could be ridden too. They kind of picked out a weanling that they liked and then we went to another large pasture where there were adult drafts and crosses and cattle and mules. I have never seen so many animals in one place in my life. They were so healthy and fat, but the fashion trend they were pushing this season had a lot to do with cockle burs. They were all friendly and curious and bunched around us. I tried to take a picture of a good lookin’ mule but I couldn’t get far enough away from him to take the picture (he really liked me).

Marcy’s (horse owner) car was parked in front of us and their little boy, Ben was shooing the horses away from their car, and I asked him why and se said that the horses were chewing the chrome off their Cadillac. Then as we were leaving, said Cadillac got stuck in the mud. All able bodies pushed while all able draft horses watched.

But, of course, we had to have one more incident in our bad luck day. As we were leaving this big pasture, Marcy drove over one of her 4 dogs…She now has three.

Our final stop was the yearling pasture. There were horses that turned one this spring that were as big as Sisco (and that’s saying something).

Kari and Jason fell in love with a Belgian filly…so who knows what might happen next!!!

Keep looking below for 2 sets of pictures.