Lost Horses

When the San Joaquin Valley Railroad train which runs near her Ivanhoe area home stopped and a man from the engine came knocking at her door one day last week, Sharon Scholta was a little puzzled.

Sharon's puzzlement was soon resolved when the train conductor related how the day before, he was the person who helped round up Ron and Sharon's two horses who had escaped their pen and gone to visit a neighbor's horses.

The train normally passes the Scholta ranch home, near the Road 164 crossing, once or twice a day at a relatively slow pace. Rural short line freight trains aren't moving very fast, so crews know the route pretty darned well, even which horses are in which field or pen. Loose horses are not a good thing.

Well pholks, you've got to admit that there probably aren't too many train crews which would halt a freight train, walk several hundred yards to grab a halter off a gate post, walk back across the tracks to round up the wayward visiting horses, lead them back across the tracks, put the pair back into their pen, hang the halter back on the gate, walk back to the train and roll on down the tracks.

Sharon was amazed that someone would go to such great lengths to prevent her horses from potential harm or death and wanted to thank the engineer, but was a little apprehensive about possibly getting him in trouble.

“Stopping a train, getting out and taking the time and effort to get them back home was really something,” Sharon said last week, recalling how far the conductor had to go out of his way to round up the two horses. “I really wanted to acknowledge the effort and let someone know how grateful we are. The horses could have really been hurt or killed or caused other damage,” she added.

Although she had noticed his name tag on his shirt when he came to her door, Sharon wanted to make sure of the name so she called the Exeter headquarters of San Joaquin Valley Railroad. She confirmed it was Jake McClain of Visalia who came to her door relating what had taken place the previous day. McClain and fellow conductor Mike Fulton of Exeter were the railroad cowboys who, after engineer Daniel Rodriquez of Dinuba stopped the train, rounded up Buddy” and “Billy,” and made sure they were secure.

So it just goes to show ya that somewhere down the line there always seems to be pholks willing to help others, even if it means stopping a train to rescue a couple of wayward horses who were just feeling their oats, or seeing if the grass was really greener on the other side of the fence, or just horsing around.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com