Many years ago, when I was living on my own I was living in a small cottage. My neighbor, David was the care-taker of about 3 or 4 horses on a piece of land about 3 or 4 acres.
Now, I was young and didnt know better at first I was afraid of these large horses but once I learned about them essentially horses are like large puppy dogs. Dumb puppy dogs.
These horses had gone and eaten all of their green grass in their area, so one day David got this brilliant idea. (David got lots of ideas all brilliant well as brilliant as a 7-watt lightbulb that is burned out.)
David saw all sorts of lush green grass along the river just outside the horse pen, and he went and opened up a side gate to let them out so they could graze along the river.
My question was how wuz he gonna keep them from wandering off. His solution wuz to tie some concrete blocks around their necks.
Anyway the first problem was getting them to actually SEE the opening in the fence line. These horses had been corralled in this area for a long time, and that part of the fence had never been opened before. They would walk over to the opening you could see it was open plain as day and they would turn and not exit the opening. Grrrr
Well, all of them FINALLY saw the opening and trotted through it and started grazing along the river except for one horse Flash.
That horse was a stallion-type of horse high-spirited thing. He kept frustrating David and me by turning and dodging, what he thought was running headlong into a barb-wire fence.
I told David No problem. I hopped up on the back of Flash no bridle no saddle just bareback and started guiding with my hands pushing gently first on one side of the horses neck then the other walking him ever closer to the opening in the fence. (We often rode the horses bareback but usually had a bridle to guide them with.)
However as always Flash veered at the last second. Only this time he took off running me still on his back only able to hold on. Stupid horse <shaking head>.
He was only trotting at first and I did good keeping my balance but then he got this notion and bolted his trot turning into a run. I was STILL doing okay, but then he ran outta room on the property, and he turned to run back up to the front of the property.
It wuz at that point that I started to slide off sideways. I knew I was falling off of Flash so I threw myself off and landed on the ground upset at this horse.
Know what? He stopped. Soon as I hit the ground he came to a stop only aggravating me all that much more. Grrrrrr.
I got up, and led that horse right over to the opening. This time he went Oh! An opening! and went through it to graze with the other horses along the river.
Oh and those concrete blocks didnt keep the horses from moving wherever they wanted. David also tried a tire complete with rim and aired up nope they dragged that. I dont think that David ever found something heavy enuf to keep them in one place very long, and we usually wound up running them down about a mile away, and carrying their anchor back whilst leading them.
Regards,
Jim TX