Winter Roundup

[heRS]

Anybody have horses on this forum? If so, you'll probably appreciate this story.
Drinking my coffee this morning, look out the window to see six horses on the loose. I know where they belong, so I drove over to their place to let them know their horses were out. The guy was already out trying to follow them crosscountry, but they were leaving him way behind. I drove up to the next road and tried heading them off. They weaseled around me and my truck, so I got back in, got ahead of them again and tried again.
I managed to catch the lead horse by walking alongside her a little way instead of walking straight on up to her. Once you have the lead horse the rest will follow. I had a dog leash in the truck so I attached that to her halter, turned her around and headed back toward their home. The other five horses also turned around, fell into line behind her, and followed along.
It was about a half-mile walk back to their driveway, another 10 minutes go by once we got there and the owner finally rolls by (he's been driving around looking for his horses). Another neighbor was driving by and was kind enough to give me a ride back to my truck. The horses are home now, safe and uninjured.
All in all, an hour and a half to find the owner, find the horses again, head them off, catch and return. By the way, this is in about 8" of frozen solid snow and the temp is around 25 and takes place over about a two square mile area. Our roads are very slick right now, and the horses were slipping and sliding around, breaking a leg is a very real possibility. Apparently this was not their first escape - I suggested they run a hot wire around the pasture to prevent further escapes. I can't believe they didn't already have this. If you're going to have horses, you have to have good fences.
All's well that ends well, there is my Christmas Roundup story.