Once again, think horses

[Dan Goncharoff]

Horses gallops??
DanG

On 3/25/2010 7:17 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Once again, think horses
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> If you heard hoofbeats on the streets of Chula
> Vista, California, yesterday, you should not have thought zebras.
>
>   From the Seattle Times, at
> http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011439678_apuswildhorses.html
>
> Horses gallops through San Diego County suburb
>
> The Associated Press
> CHULA VISTA, Calif. ­
>
> Manes and tails flying, a herd of horses galloped
> along paved streets of this San Diego suburb,
> through a parking lot, fields and an Olympic
> training center for up to two hours before a
> mustachioed cowboy herded them back to the ranch.
>
> Wild horses apparently led other horses to escape
> from a ranch east of town in Otay Mesa on
> Wednesday afternoon, Chula Vista police spokesman
> Bernard Gonzales said Thursday.
>
> "They had come down from the hills just above
> Chula Vista and they had intermingled with some
> other horses," Gonzales said. "I guess that the
> leader of that pack of wild horses induced the other horses to run free.
>
> "In their natural state, a horse will follow the
> dominant horse. They were all following the lead horse."
>
> Abel Canales, a ranch hand at the OK Corral, told
> The San Diego Union-Tribune that the wild horses
> may have come from Mexico, which is just a few miles away.
>
> U.S. Border Patrol trucks tried to herd them and
> television helicopters followed as the horses and
> a few colts galloped through the wide streets of
> the Eastlake area, which is the urbanized portion of the town.
>
> The horses ran into the U.S. Olympic Training
> Center near Otay Lake, where they cantered around
> the flag court and fields before heading through
> a parking lot and back onto the road. The Olympic
> facility includes training venues for track and
> field, canoe/kayak, cycling, field hockey,
> soccer, archery and rowing.  [But apparently they
> did not find the location for equestrian events.]
>
> Two of the horses, including a colt, stopped
> about a mile away. Volunteers from the San Diego
> Humane Society roped and calmed them. Televised
> reports showed one roped horse neighing and
> kicking its front legs as a volunteer struggled to hold it.
>
> "It was pretty stressful, they were both injured,
> minor injuries on their legs, and they're both
> very fatigued from galloping around," Human Society Capt. D.J. Grove said.
>
> Pursuers on horseback managed to push the rest
> southward onto a road and then a trail through
> open country and finally got the horses, winded
> but not seriously hurt, back to the ranch, Gonzales said.
>
> Canales said he followed the herd on horseback
> and was finally able to rope the lead horse and
> guide the herd back to the ranch. With his white
> cowboy hat, bushy mustache and lasso, he cut a dashing figure on the TV news.
>
> "I felt like a cowboy out in the Old West," he said.
>
> Police said it was unclear how the horses got out of their stalls.
>
> "Did they jump? Was there an open gate? Were the
> horses so domesticated that the owner thought
> they would never leave? I don't know," Gonzales said.
>
> No citations were issued because there was no
> real threat to motorists or other residents, Gonzales said.
>
> Gonzales said it was the first time he could
> recall horses cantering through the town, a
> suburb about a dozen miles from downtown San
> Diego where lemon groves dominated in the last
> century until World War II brought in factory
> workers and servicemen. Thousands of new homes
> have been built in recent decades although there
> still are ranches scattered among its scenic hills and canyons.
>
> "It's interesting to think that wild horses still
> roam free out in those hills," Gonzales said. "It
> was kind of like nature springs forth to remind
> us all that there are greater things out there."
> -----
> Joel
>
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