Can I delurk and tell my getting rid of a stallion story?
My work own a field which I have to manage (which is absolutely not our usual line of business and so we don't know much about fields!). It was leased to a man who didn't pay his rent so we evicted him. He took all his ponies except two, which he said he couldn't catch so he was abandoning them.
We employed professional horse catchers. They caughtthe mare but couldn't catch her offspring -a two year old stallion who had never been touched by human hand - totally wild. They said he was dangerous and they weren't going to try again.
So I phoned the RSPCA, they provided a marksman and rifle, a vet provided the tranquilizers, I found a horsebox driver and someone volunteered to adopt him.
The appointed day dawned and 4 RSPCA officers, the marksman, the vet and the lorrydriver turned up but not the adopter. After frantic phone calls she admitted that she had changed her mind.
Meanwhile the first tranquilizer dart had bounced off his muddy hide. This irritated the stallion so he was now charging round the field. The second dart went in - and made him sufficiently dopey to corner but it wasn't until he was injected with a third dose that he was doped enough for us to pick up each hoof and place it forward and hoof by hoof walk him into the lorry.
Thankfully during all this the horsebox man was able to see that this two year old was in superb and robust health and very good looking - so he decided to take him home to see if his wife could tame him. I was so grateful to him. Reading this tale has made me wonder what became of that handsome animal, was he tameable or did he have to be shot?