has your horse ever got loose at a show

[Buglet]

My mare jumped out of one of the private paddocks at HITS Culpeper. She was running loose around the huge field where some of the trailers park. She managed to find the opening in the fence that led to the field that was not fenced in (the one that has the old cross country jumps) and had full access to the road that runs along side of the show grounds. Luckily she stayed on the shoulder of the road. She went about 2 miles down the road and turned onto another road that led to someones farm. Thank god someone had seen her and announced that a horse was loose in the back field and some of the show staff followed her on golf carts. I tried keeping up with her but running in overgrown grass in my tall boots isnt my forte. They managed to get her enclosed in a paddock on the other farm. She only had a minor cut from jumping the paddock fence. We had a very long walk back to the show grounds and I attempted to explain to her that I am too old to be chasing her around lol.

[horsepoor]

Super dead quiet, shown every where for years, teenage horse decided bathing was not in the cards that day and busted loose. Toured the show grounds, and I can't remember who caught him, but I enlisted a helper after that for bathing!

Another show, I was helping my trainer and we got all the horses to the show grounds the day before schooling day. Showed up schooling day morning and see as we drive up (outside, portable stabling) the door open and horse gone. Not mine, but a new horse of a clients...gone. Grab halter and lead rope and commence search. Must have been quite the night for loose horses as everyone we meet sees halter and lead and says your horse is right here...and it's not the horse! Another loose horse, but not ours. We looked in every single stall and every inch of show grounds, had show office making announcements, etc. no horse!

Trainer is panicking, thinking he has to call client (not at show) and tell her he lost their new, fancy, expensive horse. We call local sheriff, animal control, and expand search to driving around neighborhood surrounding show.

Late morning, some kid from the neighborhood comes to show office as they have a horse penned up in their backyard. Office calls us, trainer and I hightail it over there and there is horse grazing in backyard. Trainer walks him back...this was about half a mile from the show...horse spent most of the day sleeping off his fun. No I'll effects except for wearing his shoes down to nothing out running on the pavement.

Stall chained or tied closed after that!

[marta]

not my horse but at ridecamp one time two horses got loose and proceeded to canter/trot through the camp. of course they pick the time when everyone is at ridecamp meeting. since warning of "loose horse" came out of my corner of the camp i raced thinking maybe it was my mare only to get to there in time to block the loose horses with my arms and a growl so they at least turned back around and away from the road.

they then proceeded to run through my camp site, around my trailer, past my mare (tied up to a picket line), around my tent. i thought my mare would have a melt down but she just turned around with a baffled look on her face watching these two strangers trot past her. i love my girl

[sophie]

Yes, when I was at a one-day horse trials.

As I was coming out of the porta potty, I see my little mare canter by, with stirrups flapping and lead rope flying behind.

She hated being by herself in the trailer, so while waiting for my next phase, I had tied her to the side of the trailer, with hay. But then I left her to go to the bathroom...

Someone caught her and gave her back to me, saying, "she was just looking for you!".

I'm sure she was.

This is a mare who once jumped her paddock fence to follow me.

I still miss that little mare. Sniff.

[pAin't_Misbehavin']

Yes, little pAin't Misbehavin' used to untie himself on a regular basis and go walkabout. We only showed at little schooling shows, and he'd always turn up with some little girl on the other end of his lead rope. He just did it to be a pony.

I was young and not sufficiently experienced or imaginative to realize how dangerous this could be. And apparently the Lord really does take care of fools and babies cause no one ever came to grief.

But yeah, I now know not to tie a horse to a trailer at a show and wander away.

[katarine]

Sure, got bucked off at a horse show outside, warming up in a field. My then 3 YO grew up there and was apparently delighted to be back. He dropped my butt like a hot potato. My trainer helped me catch him, casually said 'what'd you do wrong?" and I answered and called it a day. I'd gotten yard darted the day before on a strange horse who pulled a dirty stop rather than hop a mud puddle. I was just about over the whole horse thing that weekend

[getupasb]

I've had this many times with my old gelding.

The first time was when we were walking back to the barn from the warm up ring. A loud golf-cart went past and spooked my horse. He took off towards the barn at a full gallop. People were trying to stop him and couldn't catch him. The best thing was that the only thing that stopped him was a man that was carrying donuts. He ran towards him, stopped, and put his face in the donuts to eat one. LOL.

I also fell off of him twice when showing. I do pleasure stuff, so I was in the arena with other people. He's not the type to stop when you fall off, so every time I fell he would take off at a full gallop and would eventually stop when he found a group of horses to hide behind.



A picture of one of the times.

[leilatigress]

Worst loose horse story I have was a stallion. How he managed to not only not get killed nor kill anyone is a miracle. It was at a huge event where spectators numbered in the thousands. In our corner of the grounds there was the main ring, warm up ring and several barns full of horses. It's 9am in the morning and the horses and folks are buzzing. He was all of 5 years old and 15 hands high (on a good day) he was also an SOB to wrangle. He was generous with hooves and teeth and since he was 'art in motion' we were limited to our resources of handling him. I was cleaning his stall when he came walking down the isle with his handler. He took immediate offense to the cart being in his way and leaped straight up into the air lifting his handler with him. Handler hung on for dear life which pissed SOB off even more and he attacked the handler with teeth and hooves. I tried to fend him off with the plastic scooper I had, that ticked him off more but he left the handler and took off. Fan freakin tastic... loose stallion! Helped the handler to the first aide tent and then headed off to find SOB. SOB was running like his tail was on fire through the middle of the arena. Of course there is a class in progress thankfully it's geldings and he picks a fight with one of them. Owner of the gelding lays into SOB with his whip to no avail. SOB does extensive damage to gelding and runs out into the fair grounds next to the arena. Great! Loud music, lots of kids screeching "pretty pony", screaming parents, and mass chaos. I don't know if the horse gods took mercy on the horse or if that much noise & lights fried his brain. He was like a statue as the owner walked up and grabbed his lead. I kid you not the damn horse walks behind this man like he's a friggin lesson pony all the way back to the barn and into his stall.

[jewll27]

yes. He bucked me off during schooling, ran out of the ring and all the way up the hill, past the trailers, to a giant field of cows at the back of the show barn's property. My trainer was pissed about having to go get him, but at least he stood with the cows and didnt keep running.

[216 Jumper]

Yes!

So embarassing when they yell "LOOSE HORSE" and it's yours and you are running behind trying to catch up doing the run of shame!

Mine got loose when we were loading up to go home from the show and took off through the schooling ring and INTO the jumper ring! Luckily the rider had already finished, but my guy tore around all the jumps for a while until I finally cornered him.

So embarassing! I guess he wasn't ready to go home yet!

[enjoytheride]

My mare got loose at a horse trial once when I stupidly left the back door of the trailer open and she somehow got her lead rope under it and pulled back. She just wandered around until she found me.

Now my new pony I took to her first show and XC schooling a month ago. We were way out on the XC course, maybe 10 minutes from the barn when she gets a wee bit enthusiastic to a bank and I was sitting a wee bit too far forward. She took off and was almost in her stall before someone caught her.

I don't know how a horse that has never been anywhere before knows where the stall it spent 6 hours in is, but she did.

[Trevelyan96]

Its downright embarassing how many times my horses have gotten loose in public!

Trav earned the "Pretty Boy Floyd" award at his first show. Dumped his first rider and got loose. I get on him, he's a good boy, so super talented friend says she'll take him in his class and he dumps her in the schooling ring. She laughs it off, takes him in his classes and he pins a 1st and 2nds, gets reserve champion for his division.

I caught he!! from all my friends for the entire show season about my rogue horse. First rider never got on him again, and I don't blame her. It was a nasty F-you bronc bucking tantrum. BTDT with him, but it had been 3 years and we weren't expecting it.

Rico also managed to get loose the first time I took him to a show after untying himself from a trailer. He still can untie himself. Don't know how he does it, but it usually only takes him 5 minutes. I always put him in a stall, but for some reason, someone was in my stall that day, so he was tied to trailer while we tried to sort it out.

ETA: Oh, and both my mares once got loose on a trail ride. DD's pny pulled loose from her, and my super experience friend let mare go as well. As they're running off, friend says 'oh there's only a small opening in fence, they'll never find it' - as they go running through the opening. So there's 3 of us standing there and I'm the only one still holding a horse. She then says "I hope you know that's a $200 pair of reins around your horse's neck" and all I could think to say was "Well you're the one who let go of a $5,000 horse with $200 reins."

[shakeytails]

Yes, but it wasn't a big deal. The silly horse somehow learned how to untie himself from the trailer. He was contently eating grass a few feet from the trailer. Grass is much better than his full hay net! The first time I figured it was a fluke, after the second time we started tying him differently- and he was put back on the trailer if everybody was going to be away from the trailers for more than a few minutes.

[Flagstaff Foxhunter]

DH's gelding untied himself from the trailer while I was doing a course in the ring. 1600 pounds of bellowing bay beast, thundering around the exterior of the ring! My guy jumped around our little crossrails so unfazed, we won the class!

[Donkaloosa]

Yeah, me, too. I was in the warm-up ring at the barn where I boarded --- an AQHA show was going on. Pea-brained horse I had suddenly threw a bucking fit, I came off, and horse took off bucking and running all around the large and very full ring. Someone hopped off their horse and caught my idiot. I was mortified --- not just because my horse had dumped me, but my shirt caught on the saddle horn and ripped totally open down the front! Several of the riders in the ring came up to me and told me they couldn't have stayed on that horse, either, which did make me feel a little better. Still, everyone got to see my bra...

[J-Lu]

Not me, but the gal I went to the show with. It was a show we trailered in to and kept the horses tied on the trailer. We were having "one of those days". Lots of fun but what could go wrong was going wrong.

We were watching a class in the stands and we heard an announcement for a loose horse. "Hahahaha", we laughed, it was probably one of ours at the rate we were going! Hahahahaha! Haha! Ha. What if it was one of our horses? We went to the top of the stands to look and sure enough, it was her horse galloping through the parking lot. He slipped his halter. He was fine and he did enter his last class.... in which he lost a shoe.....

[mtngirl]

BTDT and it's no fun!

Twice...once the Appy was tied to his trailer and the clip on his lead rope came apart...Sky discovered the cross country course...which was almost knee high in lushous grass. 95F day, very long hills on that x-country course. Took me over 30 minutes to catch him. I had 10 minutes until my First level test. Sky was quite warmed up by then and I was exhausted. Judge told me she didn't take off for my use of voice in the test (seems I was saying, OW, OW, OW, as my thighs cramped from dehydration).

2nd time, Sky dumped me, again this was on another grass lush cross country course (and I don't even DO cross country, I was helping a friend)...another 30 minutes to catch him. He's very funny about other people handling him, and he definitely has times when he likes to play "catch me if you can...nyah, nyah, na nyah nyah!"

[MyssMyst]

Yup, psychotic chestnut Morgan gelding at the Watsonville show in California several years back. We were hitching him to the cart (thank heavens it was the schooling cart) when a truck backfired. Rex takes off, tailing the cart, and tears around the show grounds at a full gallop for a good 20 minutes, including jumping a 6ft wide ditch. As he comes barreling up past a group of horses, we're yelling "LOOSE HORSE" and the riders all just kind of looked at us like we were nuts. They figured it out when one of the horses decided to escape by diving in between two porta-potties and and knocking them over (fortunately they were empty).

We were picking leaves and twigs out of the harness and cart for some time. The little stinker stayed sound and did very well at that show, except for spooking and trying to mow down the photographer. He was a nutjob, but when he was on, he was ON. I miss that guy.

[red squirrel ridge]

I was showing my first pony at our first show. I was about 11 or 12, I was so excited! I was warming up in the warmup ring which was defined by yellow caution tape ( I don't know sees like a good idea, right?) Anyway someone ducked under the tape and it snapped back into place my pony spooks and shys away depositing me on the ground. If this wasn't embarrassing and emotionally crushing enough (remember I was 12 this was my first pony and naturally I thought we were BFFs) she proceeded to rampage around the fair grounds like an idiot for some time until being caught. I have no idea for how long or who caught her, I seem to have blocked most of that memory . My mom recently brought that story back up, gee thanks!
This pony was quite a piece of work. When I would try to lead he over grass she would lean into me and step on my foot, then plant her face in the grass as I frantically tried to push her off.

[KSAQHA]

Once. A few years ago, my DH decided she wanted to show our gelding. At the second show we attended, had gelding saddled at trailer. I had slipped the halter around his neck to bridle him, when the wind blew the door of the stock trailer next to us crashing open. Spooked the gelding, he slipped out of the halter, and went trotting off...headed for the ring. THANK GOODNESS, my DH & DD were making their way back to the trailer on the same route and the gelding stopped when he saw them. It was embarrassing enough that I noticed a woman at a nearby trailer shaking her head in a 'tsk, tsk' manner.