somebody told me 7 million...all I know is there is a bunch of them, and the Mule Deer population is right up there in certain locales, and the elk have been increasing since 1949 or 50 into huntable numbers, none of this is counting high fenced ranches either.

Only two kinds of riders--those that have fallen off an those that are going to fall off. Its part of the deal.


Most any horse worth a crap will buck if its a cool morning and he's feeling good and knows he's going for a ride....just a little celebration. Just pull his head up with the reins--horse can't buck if his head is in the air.

Doesn't help that you all want to ride in them big funny saddles with pommels etc....ride in a proper english saddle or an Army saddle...

And you haven't lived until you've had a wild turkey fly out of the grass under your horse.

Was on a fox hunt a few years ago and we were standing in the middle of a field maybe 200 yards to the side of a stand of woods the hounds were working and three whitetails come bounding out of the woods straight towards us. Now our horses were experienced hunt horses and had seen plenty of game and been around tons of dogs so they weren't concerned with the deer though of course you could see by the orientation of their ears they were paying attention. Long story short one of the deer runs smack dab into the side of one of the horses with the rider on board and breaks its stupid neck (the deer's neck)....all three of us are sitting there sipping bourbon and port out our flasks and looked at each other like--no way that just happened!

Ray:

Here's a few things you likely don't know about those little boxes of sterile flys.
Uncle Sam had a fly breeding facility at the old Mission Tx airbase. They bought dried cattle blood from Rath packing in Denver. I hauled two loads of the stinking damned powder in paper sacks of 50# each. 40,000lbs per load.

Hot August, thinking we'd get a few extra bucks in our pockets we'd planned on doing the unloading instead of hiring it done. I don't have any idea how long that cow herd had been dead, but it damned sure stunk so bad we couldn't get the doors closed fast enough!

We hired 3 Mexicans and a white boy that was AWOL and needed bus fare. We gave them the full amount we could give. They stripped to their shorts and when done it looked like they'd been scalped for all the bloody sweat running off them. I still feel for the poor bastards!

Anyway: Uncle had also been getting spoiled cottage cheese to mix with the blood. When any screw worm outbreak in the US or Mexico was reported. This outfit would run several million flies thru a cobalt treatment and sterilize them. It didn't matter if they were male or female.

The flies only live five days. They breed once and die. Don't matter which is the sterile one, the egg's are no good. So this way they breed out the screw worms.
They loaded 1000-2500 flies in those little chinese carry out boxes, then run thru the cobalt treatment and flown over the area bombing the place with at least a 1000 boxes full of flies. That was in '68 I hauled the blood down there. I heard it was still a going operation in '75 but, very few outbreaks had been called in for a few years. I doubt it's still active now as I believe the screw worms have been eliminated.

Hopefully this will fill in a few blank questions you've had about it Ray. Educational to the rest of you guys.

George

I have been bucked off, fallen off due to an unexpected change of direction (at first I said "jerked off" but that didn't sound right LOL), headbutted off, and scraped off of horses.

Not to mention, kicked, bitten, rolled over, and of course, stepped on by horses.

Just part of learning to live with what has been termed, "Man's most noble conquest".

As you grow older, and hopefully, more experienced, you gain more "horse sense" and these events happen less and less.

BH63

my neck hurts right now from my old barrel and pole horse bucking me off several times. Last time was the worst, I just lay there on the hard ground holding onto the reins.

An old horse man once told me that a horse spends all day thinking of a way to kill itself or kill you. Looking back, he was probably right.

you guys with all the sad bullshit tales of horse injuries just need to go play with something else, You have to be smarter than a horse to be a horseman..A horse that's mean, a horse that bucks, a horse that rears, is a worthless horse and needs to go to the Saturday sale for dog food..

The problem with bad horses is the idiots that own them, horses are made bad by people, they are the result of folks that shouldn't own a horse..