Horsey Houdini Strikes Again!

Kika went on her most daring (and scary for me to hear about) adventure to date yesterday! 
Will hopefully keep this long stroy short - and don't worry I have doctored a google map image to help you visualise.

Spoke to one of the YO yesterday morning before work. His kids get a school bus around the same time as i go to work and as it was raining he dropped them to the bus stop...not really important to the story - this is probably how my posts get so waffly. 
He told me that the police had called them at 6am to say that horses were on the main road! 
Yep you guessed it, my little darling and her fieldmate had obviously decided that the grass in their field was nothing compared to a Pizza Hut pizza so went walkies! They were caught at the bank, so they obviously didn't have the right money 
Here's the map:

- A is where barn is
- Purple Oval is where they were caught Pizza Hut, Chinese Restaurants & Bank are along that stretch of the road.
- Pink circle by green patch is where I live - someone actually joked that she was coming to see me - but i have never brought her to the house or indeed off the farm since she arrived 2 years ago! 

The Route d'Arlon which Pizza Hut etc are on is THE main road in Luxembourg, prior to the motorways it was the road linking Lux to Belgium - still one of the most trafficked roads in Lux...and at that time of the morning - start of commute to work for people who live on the borders (100,000+ people cross borders to work in Lux everyday, not necessarily all from Belgium but still staggering figures - imagine the traffic  )
To make things even scarier, if she and her fieldmate had turned left to the big orange road on the map - that is the MOTORWAY! I try not to think of what could have happened 

Silly creatures!

I didn't say anything yesterday as i didn't have the full story and as it happened in the middle of the night i doubt we ever will get the whole story! But by all accounts the wire at the front of the field was completely busted - so reckoning is that something must have startled them during the night ... there are a lot of foxes about at the moment, or boars or who knows what crossed their minds.

The YO's did put them back into the field yesterday day and when myself and the other horse's owners got there yesterday evening they wer grand and quiet. They were understandably nervous about leaving their horse back out last night and in fact decided to keep her in. As the other fieldmate is being kept in at the moment awaiting the farrier I didn't want to leave Kika out on her last night, as even though there are horses in the neighbouring field and she is well capable of staying on her own while the others are being ridden - I didn't fancy my chances of leaving her alone overnight 

I think K and C (the grey from the pics last week - her escapee pal yesterday) are two similar creatures - headstrong, silly mares who bounce off one another in a not great way from an owners point of view. Saying "Peas in a Pod" springs to mind to describe them...the sooner P (black pony from first field frolicks videos) can re-join them the happier I'll be!

I'll also be calling the YO's today to see if there is anyway of increasing the amount of current keeping them in...I cannot leave Kika in a stable for the summer. In my mother's words "She is a free Range Horse" and is really at her happiest and most zen when able to get out - admittedly i don't relish her ability to do so without human intervention!

The fall out from yestrdays worry has me thinking of those dog shock collars (please don't think me evil for thinking of this), you know the ones that you bury something in your garden and when the collar wearer passes a certain point they get a shock - theoretically learning to stay within their allocated boundaries...I don't know if something to that affect might work with Kika.
Then again horses learn from repetition and if i were to use such a devise to stop her leaving the field...would she then start refusing to come in when lead to go to work
Of course any such collar would be removed prior to leaving the field, but repeated stimuli from testing boundaries might make horses wary to leave through gate afterwards...I don't know if such drastic action will be necessary - guess we'll have to see if they stay put from now on or not and reconsider things then!

I had been planning to ride yesterday evening, but in light of the events i settled on lungeing her in her halter to make sure all was in order and that no damage was done - thankfully she seems to have got away unscathed. Let's hope there won't be a next time as I'm not so sure we'll be so lucky!

Both ladies went back out this morning and C's owners have decided to leave her out tonight, but they have said that if they break out again that they will be asking to change fields.
The field they are in is that bit further away from the houses and in that regard considerably less secure...I'm not sure what I'll do if they get out again, i cannot keep her indoors for the summer - I'll cross that bridge if it comes to it.

Fingers crossed they'll stay put!