The Day Shamous ( my horse ) Washed my Clothes….!

The Day Shamous ( my horse ) washed my Clothes……!

This is a true story that unfolded one very hot day while on a multi day horse trekking guiding job…

Read on..!

Now Shamous for those who are unfamiliar with this horse, is an Irish draught standing some 16.3 hands  ( meaning quite tall ) who is currently around twenty years old and I have had him,, or should I say he has had me since he was a pup of just three years old…. 

Now in all these years he and I amongst others have traveled the mountain country many  times guiding riding folks in small numbers up and down the inner south Island and I would hesitate to try and calculate a total distance… many many thousands of kilometers…

During all these years Shamous has watched and learnt nearly every trick in the book so to speak…. he is a pest at camp, nicking guests lunch when they are busy talking, with a half eaten sandwich poised in there hand ready for the next bite, he will nick your stubby beer bottle and down it as quick as lightning holding the bottle in his teeth and lifting his head, then dropping the empty bottle as his top upper lip extends up in ecstasy… he will follow you into a back country hut, being nosy to see what he can eat….. all this and I can go on about him all day long with his antics…..!

Ok back to todays story….. I had been asked to guide a small group of horse trekking folks from St James start point down to Lake Tekapo which takes in some of our South Islands finest natural scenery, there were three other riders plus myself and each rider had one pack horse…

This day we had traveled from the Kiwi hut near the Lewis Pass road, up stream then connecting with the historic Kiwi horse pack track that goes from the head of the Kiwi Stream thru the beech bush and eventually descends out at the head of Lake Sumner, then crossing the Hurunui River, then up over another low saddle and down to lake Mason….

Now it was near mid day as we approached the perimeter of this lake with the temperature hitting some 30 deg…. man it was indeed hot……

Sidling around this lake on a narrow bush track we came to a small clearing next to the lake, which was a good opportunity, to give all the horses a drink out of the lake, but Shamous being Shamous decided that he didnt want to wait for all the others to take a turn, started fidgeting, and doing circles and pig rooting with me on his back just because I made him wait five minutes while the pack horses and others went first…. I got off him as he was being a real pain in the ass and held him until all the others had taken their fill…

With total frustration on Shamuses mind I unhooked my reins and let him free, in which he charged down to the lakes edge, pushing any horses that stood in his path out of the way however in his excited rush he overlooked one small problem……. INERTIA>>>>>>>>reaching the edge at his speed he was unable to stop, finding that the lakes bottom dropped away quite quickly and the next thing….. ( can you guess …???)   ………SPLASH…..!         YEP FOLKS SHAMOUS found himself swimming..!

I along with everyone else couldnt believe what just happened, and whats more, he was swimming with my prized beautiful original Syd Hill stock saddle that I had totally looked after for all these thousands of kilometres , attached to the sides of said saddle was my waterproof leather day bag containing my lunch and all sorts of small things needed on treks, the other side waterproof leather bag contained horse and human first aid gear, at the back and attached to the saddle was my swag roll containing my sleeping bag and spare dry clothes, and atop of this my swanndri coat and oil skin rain coat, all now under water with Shamous swimming straight out from shore…. I called to him and he then thought I better turn around and head back, but….. with all this now drenched extra dead weight coupled with a steep lake edge it took him three goes to finally extract himself…… 

Looking back now its was so funny,, he reminded me of seeing a submerged car being lifted out of water, with this water pouring out of all my gear, and of course having all my bags water proof they all stayed full attached to the saddle until I unhooked each one and tipped the contents out…. MAN,, what a mess this blastered horse had created…

We carried on as best as we could to the next hut where we spent two days trying to dry everything out….. me of course having no comfortable sleeping bag for the rest of the trek, and looking out the hut door here was Shamous busy eating grass as if nothing had happened…Hmmmmmmm…!

Above animated pic showing Shamous in his dreams….!