7/16 Drew Horner: Uncoiled. Stories from the Road – Part 1

We’ve had some pretty exciting things happen over the past couple weeks while we’ve been rodeoing – some scary stuff, dangerous stuff and funny stuff.

First thing, that you may have heard about via my facebook and tweeter, is my rig disappearance. Over that 4th of July week we go to 10 rodeos over a couple days and it requires someone flying around and having a driver hauling your animals. We had a driver lined up for a short drive – 1.5 hours headed to Prescott. We lost contact with him for about 5 hours.

We had no idea where our horses or our rig was. We got really worried. Thank God he finally showed up in Prescott for the rodeo. Everybody has been asking what happened, and I don’t really know. We just lost contact and were really nervous.

Next scary story that happened just a couple days… We were driving to Sheridan WY from Vernal UT. We were just north of Casper Wyoming, and we had a blowout on our front left tire on our Freightliner truck. The front tire is the most dangerous spot to have a flat.

We were in the far right lane of a four-lane highway with a median divider. When the tire blew, the truck instantly dug into the ground. Buddy Hawkins, my partner, was driving and he could barely control it. He did a great job of keeping the rig straight and keeping from flipping over.

Our truck went from the far right lane, to the left lane, through the median (which was a 30ft drop at a 45 degree angle), down into the ditch, then back up the other side, crossed the southbound highway, then ended up in the ditch on the other side. Thank God there was no traffic in the southbound lanes. The trip seemed like it lasted forever, but really it only probably took about 10 seconds.

We’ve had two pretty scary scenarios with my rig in the past week, but thank God nothing really bad happened. We were able to get another truck out here, with the help of my friends at NRS. We got a white Freightliner to keep us going to the rodeos. Our trailer didn’t have any serious damage. The horses came out with a few scratches, and that was it.

We literally should have flipped. The pictures don’t really do it justice as to how dangerous it was. It was definitely a miracle and a God thing. There is no telling what could have happened if the trailer would’ve flipped. We were 20 feet away from the culvert. We all walked away safe. Instances like that grow my trust in God – the fact that it doesn’t seem like there was anyway around serious injuries without a divine intervention. That’s been the past couple weeks so far. Stay tuned tomorrow for some stories on the funnier side of rodeo.