Hi Ho Silver Awaaayy!!

By Maggie Dokic on June 7th, 2007
Categories: The Redland

It’s not every day I get stuck in traffic behind a horse.  Oh, living in the Miami Redlands, I see horses being transported all the time.  And I usually see local horse owners taking them out for leisurely rides.  But today I saw something different.

I was driving on SW 200th Street when I saw a horse galloping like a bat out of you-know-where towards 200th street.  I knew that if I didn’t slow down he and my vehicle might actually have a sudden and, more than likely, injuring collision.

As he reached the street he barely slowed and turned onto the street and in front of my car.  He didn’t even signal.  That told me he’s a Miami native 😉  My daughter and I were very interested in seeing where he was going.  He continued galloping at about 25 miles per hour with us right behind him.

The cars started to accumulate behind us.  SW 200th Street has a speed limit of 45 mph in that area but I can tell you most folks do 60.  To the state troopers it’s like shooting fish in a barrel when they hang out on that street and give out speeding tickets.  They can reach their monthly quota in one day, I bet.  But now everyone had to slow down to 25 or less based on the horse’s whim.  Plus the horse had the oncoming traffic to deal with as well.

Thankfully most folks were pretty patient and everyone was slowing down to look at this spectacular creature running free in the middle of traffic.  Whheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  I kept thinking I had to do something and asked my daughter for permission to stop.  I was taking her to school, you see, to look at the posted results and find out if she had made it onto the cheerleading squad.  We mustn’t be late!  It might rain or something and the ink could run and render the results illegible and she might have to wait until Monday to find out if she’d made it.  Horrors!  She begrudgingly agreed that she could spare 5 minutes.

Broker Maggie and Little One to the rescue!  The horse had now decided that a side road looked more interesting and turned down that way (again, without using the turn signal).  We had travelled about half a mile from were we saw the horse get onto the street and I had not seen any vehicles come in off that road.  I checked traffic and made a u-turn.  As I passed a few cars that had gathered I asked one man getting out if that was his horse.  He told me it wasn’t and I told him I knew where he’d come from and I would go alert the owner.

The horse was oblivious to all this hoopla and was now quietly and calmly getting farther and farther away from us and the civilization to be found on the state road.  I took off to find the owner, the whole time hoping I would be successful.  I’d heard stories of horses getting stolen in the Miami Redlands and I certainly didn’t want this poor fella to be one of the statistics.

As I reached the road from whence he’d come I turned and saw a truck careening down the dirt road towards us.  I honked frantically at him and he finally stopped.  It turned out he was indeed the owner and I told him exactly where he could find him.  As soon as you pass the train tracks make a right and follow the road.  No, no, the horse isn’t on the train tracks, he’s on the next road that runs beside them and gaining distance every minute.  He thanked me and off he sped!

As we got back on course and headed to school Little One commented “that was fun.”  “Yes Little One.  Living the Redlands often is.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under The Redland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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