Fw: a Lake Perris tale about the one that got away...

This weekend I trailered with another gal from work to Lake Perris. She was taking her filly out for her first trailer out ride since she came back from 15 days at the trainer to put some miles on her. We rode for over an hour, her gaiting and me loping along gleefully. We had planned a lunch under the big tree, and I brought my camera to take some "first time out" photos for her. I had my cell phone in my fanny pack as usual, along with apple smacks for the horses. Once on the back side of the lake I suggested we sneak across the sand to let the horses splash in the lake for a minute, so we rode to the water, and Fancy went right in. Her horse had never been in water, and although she wanted to follow us in, she was shy of the lapping waves from the boats. After about 5 minutes, she willing moved forward, and I mentioned that she may leap when she first comes in. Well, leap was an under statement! I was about horse knee deep and relaxed when her horse leaped past us like a rocket! That spooked my horse, and in a flash we were swimming north, away from shore, I looked to check on my friend, and she was off her horse, and her horse was swimming away.........way away! She begged me to help her horse so she wouldn't drowned, but I couldn't get mine to turn towards shore myself, for what seemed like forever, and I don't swim well. I asked her if she was okay and if she could really swim, and she said that her clothes were weighing her down, but yes she could swim, and she was trying to swim out to catch her horse. Well, that was not possible at the rate the horse was horse paddling away with just her ears and face out of the water, so I told her to swim herself back to shore, and about that time I managed to pull Fancy around. It took awhile for my surprised horse to regain composure and remember to listen to me since she was so busy swimming. Once I got to shore ahead of my friend, I yelled and moved Fancy along the shore until it caught her horses attention, and she finally flicked an ear our way and then turned her head then her body back our way. What a relief to see that we really were going to come out of this okay. The only real problems remaining were a very wet camera and cell phone, and very wet clothes and horses. We then noticed our lunch floating away in the cooler bag, so I rode back out and retrieved that but didn't have to swim thank goodness. We may want to pick a smaller lake next time, just in case we can't turn the horses. They always know the shortes route back to the trailers dont' they! Anyway, swimming was exciting, and it would have been fun if the element of demise was not present the entire time! I would try it again in a more controlled environment though. It definitely was a long ride home in wet clothes, but atleast we didn't have to hose off the horses when we got home!

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