Thank you to everyone who participated in this rescue.
Hopefully, it was an accident of some kind, rather than intentional, that this terrific 'little guy' was separated from his rider.
Please, if you cannot care for your livestock for some reason. Take them to shelter or anonymously call your local animal control. Please don't leave them to try to survive the elements here in the mountains of Colorado.
"When the riders first saw the horse, he was visibly malnourished and shied away from human touch. His saddle had slid down around his belly and was full of snow. He could barely walk with the weight of it.
The girth’s cinch had dug into his back, leaving a large and infected wound, and the riders could see where blood had dripped down his sides. Based on the horse’s tracks, Sorenson said they determined he had been circling a 30-yard area scrounging for food.
“It was so sad,” she said. “He tried to get away from us, but he just didn’t have much strength.”
The first thing they did was cut the saddle off of him before riding all the way back to Columbine to call the U.S. Forest Service.
The Forest Service enlisted the help of Gotchey, who brought a trailer and his fiancee, Traci Clark.
They drove a trailer to the intersection of Forest Service Roads 500 and 550, where logging operations this winter fortuitously had packed the snow down for driving.
The group made its way to the horse on snowmobiles and met face to face with the now-calmer horse, who several members of the rescue party affectionately called “little man” and “little guy.”
U.S. Forest Service Ranger Mike Seawall and Reserve Law Enforcement Officer Steve McCone had brought hay and a blanket to the site.
“He didn’t look that bad, considering everything he had gone through,” Seawall said. “He looked pretty relieved. He had enough left in him to understand, ‘I’m getting out of here.’”
“You could tell, when (Gotchey) grabbed on to that lead rope, that we were there; we were getting that horse out,” he said. “I’m sure the little man’s relieved.”
The first 1 1/2 miles was post-holing through deep snow, but the snowmobiles stayed with the group and rode back and forth in front of the horse to create a track for him to walk on. The final stretch of more than six miles was along Forest Service Road 550, and Gotchey said the horse let out a sigh once he made it to the stable at about 10:30 p.m.
He said if the snowpack had been at last year’s levels, the horse’s survival and rescue would have been nearly impossible.
Seawall said the rescue was one made possible by more than the cooperating weather.
“At the end of the day, if (the snowmobilers) hadn’t have been out there and been willing to ride all the way in and make the call. That and Mike, for him to come out and take this horse and care for it, it’s wonderful.
“And the horse, he just put his head down and went to work,” he said. “Tough little horse.”
Seawall said the Forest Service is conducting an investigation into where the horse came from and the circumstances surrounding his separation from his owner...."
(Nicole Inglis)
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