Horrible and an uplifting story at the same time.
The pictures in the article are scary. I’ve always been told that if moving water reaches to your knees you’re in trouble. The situation changed so fast, he said at 4am everything was fine and by 4:30am it wasn’t.
My first thought was that I’d be tempted to ride a horse out, rather than lead them through that deep water, but they know the horses and it may have been unwise to get on them.
I owned one horse that I would never trust if I was in a tight situation. That monkey brained equine would have sent me swimming. But every other horse I’ve had would step up to the plate and take care of us both.
Being that this is a TB race training barn it was probably better not to try to ride them out bareback and bridleless. It sounds as if they had very little time, so no time to tack up.