It's tough to miss a horse in a field but that's what happened to Dawn Brooks, whose horse Cuervo was nowhere to be found on her acreage one morning.
“I went outside and I noticed he wasn't in the field and then I heard a grunting and I just dropped what I was carrying and ran over and found this horse in this hole and just his head sticking out,” Brooks said.
On Aug. 23, Cuervo had fallen into an old well on Brooks' property, located west of Carstairs in Mountain View County. After a rescue that took more than an hour, he was taken to Coulee Equine, a wellness spa for horses northeast of Olds.
Brooks has been living on the acreage for a year and said she believes the well predates her neighbour's father, who used to own the property.
She said nobody knew about the well's presence since it was old and grown over with dirt.
“So nobody knew it existed in the field. So the ground collapsed and he fell in it,” she said.
When she found out Cuervo had plunged down the well, Brooks called RCMP and enlisted some neighbours to help.
“My neighbour climbed on the horse's back, put a lariat through his withers, under his girth and attached a tow rope to it,” she said. “And then attached it to a front load tractor and lifted him straight out of the air and brought him out.”
That tractor belonged to Einar Sakariassen, who said the drop was about three metres in total, with more than two metres of water at the bottom.
“I brought my tractor over and we put a strap around underneath him and lifted him up partway and got him started,” Sakariassen said. “(Then) put a rope on his front feet and pulled him the rest of the way out.”
Throughout the process, Cuervo remained calm, Brooks said.
“He's a sweetheart of a horse, quiet nature and he knew we were there to help,” she said.
Brooks has been a barrel racer for the past three years and with Cuervo, qualified for the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association finals in Las Vegas this October.
Cuervo is currently getting a saltwater hydrotherapy treatment at Coulee Equine.
“His legs are still pretty swollen,” Brooks said. “He goes into a bath and the saltwater works on his legs to bring the swelling down.”
Staff at the equine spa have told her that Cuervo will recover from his injuries, she said. At this point, she doesn't know if it will be in time for the Las Vegas competition.
According to Sakariassen, it could have been worse.
“His name should be changed to Lucky. If he had went down that well headfirst, he would have drowned right away,” he said.
“It's good that we had … people (come) to help. Everybody contributed, RCMP were there. It was good to have everyone there to lend a hand, that's for sure.”
