Once again, think horses

[Joel S. Berson]

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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