Wayward Pony

My youngest daughter decided to purchase a new pony the other day.  After much searching she found a little gelding with similar breeding to the mare she currently rides and successfully competes on.  Her mare is now six and we have toyed with the idea of breeding her in the future, which means that she will be out of competition for at least a year.  Therefore, Kaitlyn is planning ahead to the day when she will need a replacement for her prized mare. 
Ace, the new boy, is a cute red dun gelding which we picked up from a breeder in Montney. He is a yearling and cutting/reining bred.  Not a runner according to his papers, but as with Kaitlyn's mare he could still turn a can and beat the timer faster than the big runners she has gone against in the barrel races.  At this early in the game, we can't say what his future holds, but he is well built and has a kind eye.  Kaitlyn is infatuated with her new boy and I am glad that this is the kind of boy she is pursuing!
So, day 1 we decided to take out Ace, brush him down and give his feet a little trim.  We wanted to see how much sacking out we needed to do and how much (or how little) handling he has had.  The wind was blowing insanely and it was hard to find a safe place to tie him.  We managed to find a spot along our sheep pen to do some grooming.  Ace was really good considering our Billy goat kept being a pest and checking out what we were doing.  It was obvious that Ace had never been around sheep or goats before, but he was trusting and curious.
Next Evan brought out his yearling stud colt out to introduce the pair and to compare builds for curiosity sake.  Israel was quite taken with Ace, and then the squealing began!  When Evan took Israel away to let him run in a small field, Ace kept his eye on him and called for his new friend.  We thought maybe we could let the two boys play for a while in the field so we set them free.  We did leave Israel's halter and lead rope on in case we needed to grab him quickly if he should not play nicely with Ace.  So, the boys quickly broke out into a lope, with their tails blowing behind them.  They ran around a corner and Ace ran right through our electric wire fence, and kept running up into our back field.  He ran and ran until we could not see hin any longer!! The prized new pony simply ran away!  We couldn't believe our eyes! 
So what did we do?  We chased after him, following his prints in the ice and snow.  We ran until we tasted blood in our mouths.  Beyond our fields and neighbours field lies the highway!  We had to find our pony before he hit the highway.  When I reached our neighbour's house, I asked if he had seen our runaway, but he had not.  Before I left his property he yelled out to me that the pony was seen on the highway and had run into another neighbours field a kilometer down the road across from a busy intersection.  We were happy to hear that he was found, but the challenge to catch him was now on!    For two hours we tried to lure that pony in with grain.  We cornered him several times and he would cut out and escape.  Finally, I was able to get a hold of our good neighbours and ask for some extra help.  With another experienced hand around, I was hoping we could get this pony caught as we were burning daylight.  I couldn't imagine what we would do once night set in...
About 20 minutes later we got that stinker pony cornered again and with the help of my steer wrestling son he wrangled that pony in and Kaitlyn haltered him up.  It was done!  With a great sigh of relief, thanks to our neighbour and great thanks to God we had our pony back.

And as I drove my vehicle home with the emergency lights flashing the picture I saw before me was a vision of when one of God's children come home.  There in front of me was a picture of Greg (father) holding hands with his daughter as they lead the pony home.  What a feeling of complete joy we all had on a job well done to bring the wayward one home again. It is a picture I will never forget.  The father holding his child's hand as he leads them safely home.