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How's that for a subject line?  I say "almost"  because nobody got
killed--that would have been my worst nightmare.

Friday afternoon I was trailering Allegra home after a wonderful ride.  I
had gone to a friends place in Bonsall to ride some new trails.  This was
Allegra's longest trailer trip so far, about 45 minutes from home.  She
hasn't been real thrilled with trailering so I was very happy with how well
she loaded and that when I arrived at my friends she wasn't sweaty.  So, as
I said , we had a great ride and were headed for home.  I wasn't more than
five minutes from my friends house when it happened.  I was making a left
hand turn , somehow I didn't see the truck coming, or thought I had plenty
of time,  I was wrong.  The truck T-boned my horse trailer on the left side
that Allegra was loaded on.

My trailer "was"  a two horse, straight load, bumper pull.  On impact it was
literally torn into two pieces, actually three pieces counting the roof.
The front section of the trailer consists of the mangers with tack
compartment underneath.  The back part being the horse "box".

I don't think I will ever forget the sound of the oncoming pickup hitting my
trailer.  I just couldn't believe it was happening.  I jumped out of my
truck and my first though was I need to release Allegra's head.  I opened
the door at her head and she was pulling back.  Luckily the quick release
worked with just two tugs.  Then I thought OK now get the trailer open to
get her out.  But there was no trailer.  She was standing with all four feet
on the street.  The "box" that she had been standing in was on its side 15
feet away.   Allegra was amazingly calm.  She just stood there.  So I am
thinking , allright , there has to be some damage here, and started looking
her over.  She had several  abrasions on her legs, nothing too serious, a
small gash under one eye, then I got around to the right side of her.
That's where the blood was coming from.  She had a bad cut about 12" long on
her right hind gaskin.  At the time it looked as though a large piece of
flesh had been removed, luckily that was not the case.  It was bleeding, but
I could tell it was not an artery so I wasn't too panicked.

Side note here.  Some of you may remember two years ago a riders horse was
cut pretty bad at the Norco ride.  There was a lot of discussion about it on
ridecamp.  I was with the vet treating that horse then and learned allot
about how much blood a horse can loose before it becomes life threatening.
That knowledge really helped me keep my sanity during my accident.

So here I am, standing in the middle of the street, luckily not a super busy
one, with my horse trailer in pieces around me and my horse's leg bleeding.
The other driver thankfully was not hurt, nor was I.  I was just kind of in
a daze, not knowing what to do.  Then all the angels started to appear.
Somebody stopped with a cell phone and said, " I have called  911 and told
them we need a vet and horse ambulance."  Another man came over to me and
said, " I work at the race track, I have ace. Would you like me to give your
horse a shot?"  ( Bonsall is the home of San Louis Rey Race Training
Center).  Another man from the track said, " I'll call my vet."  About  that
time the fire dept. shows up.  Then instantly the vet is there.  It is the
same vet that the track man was going to call.  He just happened to be
driving by on his way to another call that was thankfully not an emergency.
I just couldn't believe how nice everyone was.

The first track man went back to the track to get a trailer, the second one
stayed and helped me and the vet.  On a slightly funny note,  Allegra
absolutely hates shots.  Here she had survived this horrendous event,
maintaining total calm, until the vet comes at her with a needle.  They had
to twitch her to give her the sedative. The fireman commented that he would
like to be able to use that twitch on some of his patients! Once she had the
shot, she calmed down and the vet was able to bandage her. He didn't have a
bandage large enough for the wound so the fireman provided him with one.

This story is getting pretty long so I will send this part and continue.

Julie Herrera and Allegra the wonder horse


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