Guardian article - Experience: my horse sank in quicksand

I worked as a guide in NZ for a while and our rides crossed rivers. We had a lot of quicksand to contend with so the experienced guides and horses would always test out every route first before we would let the tourists follow. It was a little stressful as they had to follow the exact path that the guide took and sometimes would wander off course!

I was told there that horses would usually only sink as far as their bellies as the increased surface area would usually prevent them from going lower. They had a few that got stuck and had to be pulled out by a vehicle or another horse. Most would stop struggling and wait to be rescued without any issues but self recovery was difficult.
 
Rivers can be pretty lethal, particularly when they're close to the sea and are affected by rising tide. Place I worked at in Oz - on the Coast - had a thousand acre 'island' cut off from the main property by a major river. A pony tried to cross the river from the island (we didn't know at the time) and he got stuck in the silt ith only his head above water level!! The boss wouldn't have spent money finding him - his wife arranged a promised 'joy ride' for the kids over the farm with the pilot roped in to help spot the pony that 3 days of searching HADN'T found!!

We were kitted up for this sort of rescue because we also had some immensely boggy bits on the island that idiots tended to ride their horses into - we averaged 2 rescues a year. I always got the job of 'dressing' the horse for rescue - a harness based on a lunging roller with some webbing strapping going around the backside, through the rings on the lunging roller and either side of the neck to the tow rope. I had to pull each foot up out of the silt in turn and put the leg through a motor-bike tyre (to help flotation and keep legs out of the silt.) Then it was pull with the tractor and whack horse's bum to encourage it to try! The big risk is if you just PULL when a horse's legs are stuck there's a good chance you'll break at least one of its legs!

When we got the poor little bloke out, he was totally incontinent (hadn't been able to wee in the river - lucky his bladder hadn't burst!) The incontinence continued for about a week - he NEVER tried to cross water again!
 
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