Horseback Fox Hunt
- October 14, 2024
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
The black Thoroughbred gelding that I bought back when I was in high school has been written about here before. That horse was a hand full and crazy to boot. I called him Pilot.
The booger could sure cover the country easy, I’ll give him that. When he loped he was like he was on a rail. Since he would occasionally throw himself into reverse or a spin at slower gaits, a lope was often the chosen speed, as he seemed to be able to stay lined out doing that. Plus, he never seemed to tire out at that gait.
I was crossing several pastures to reach another and was loping him all I could to make time. The only time I pulled him up to a trot was to cross a creek or deep cut, and we stopped to open a couple of gates. So, several miles into the ride he was warmed up pretty good and just floating across the prairie.
Coming up out of a draw we jumped a fox. The fox ran up the slope ahead of us and I decided to give him a little run. Fox were major players in the depredation of the lambs on the ranch, so making one a bit uncomfortable didn’t bother my conscience in the least.
I urged Pilot to speed up and try to overtake the fox and suddenly, his ears went forward and he really saw the fox and locked his focus on it. Just as we got right up behind the fox, the fox ducked to the side at a 90-degree angle, and really poured on the speed. Much to my surprise, Pilot turned with the fox and ran right on its tail, ducking and turning right along with the fox as it tried to evade us. It simply could not get away as Pilot could turn so quickly and ran just as fast as the fox with no effort.
It was pretty fun riding like a maniac out across the pasture, through the draws, jumping washouts and all the other obstacles that the fox used to try to throw us off. Pilot was absolutely in his element and never let the fox get but a few yards ahead. Finally, though, the fox ran under the wire fence and got away.
I pulled Pilot up before he did anything crazy like run through the fence or jump it. He was sweated up on his neck and when I asked him to move off, he was breathing a little faster than if we’d trotted all the way. I got off, we went through a gate into another pasture, and by the time I got back on, he was breathing normally.
Pilot sure had endurance, seeing as how we’d already loped several miles, then ran that fox all over for a half hour or so at a hard lope. He just wasn’t winded or fatigued at all. It was pretty amazing. But, it was also frustrating, for as often as I’d needed Pilot to track cattle to rope them, he never had tracked up and locked on like he did on that fox, the first one he’d ever pursued. My consolation was in that the fox was probably completely shagged from his run and would maybe leave the lambs alone for a while.
You may wonder why I didn’t try to rope the fox. Well, because, even at 17 years of age, I had several functioning brain cells that told me that the fox might not take that well at all and that, realistically, I was riding an insane horse. The combination might not have been great if I’d have tied on to the fox.
Apparently I had him in the wrong career. He’d have been perfectly suited to chasing fox and coyotes with a pack of hounds across the big country. I continued to use him as a ranch horse for several more months, riding on pasture cattle, and we had run another fox or two in that time, where I found that his only time of mental clarity was when he was chasing a fox.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....