In my last column, I wrote about losing a "team" horse in a runaway (out of control) accident.

I alluded to a future column wherein I would write about a four-horse team runaway. Writing about farming with horses as a topic was suggested to me by our son.

For a decade, we raised heavy horses and used them as much as we could in our ranching venture, in order to train them for sale. Our home place was isolated and located in the valley bottom where there were willow bottoms that flooded and Spruce swamps begging to be developed. One needs a dry year to clear and develop land into hayfields.

Our ranching partner was clearing the land of trees and stumps, leaving woody debris which needed to be hand picked and rough spots which required levelling. This day, I had two teams of two horses which were at different stages in their training.

When we got these horses there was a group of four- and seven-year-old colts (untrained). It takes time to gentle these horses which had essentially run wild as they were growing up. They were physically ready to work. Our practice was to hitch a green horse to an old horse which would always go (start and pull the load) and always stop(whoa) until it was ready to pair up with potential mate.

The stopping is important from the "get go" with draft (load pulling) horses because they are hitched to many implements or logs which can be dangerous to the driver (teamster) and anyone else in the vicinity. A hay mower can be noisy when in gear cutting hay or when the steel wheels hit rock on the road. A wagon tongue can whip back and forth and unsettle a young horse by slapping its side.

This day we had used both teams of colts on the stone boat which drags on runners close to the ground and doesn't roll up on the hind feet of the horses and spook them. We picked the biggest of the sticks left behind from the land clearing done by the bulldozer.

Seemingly, both teams having worked a couple of hours, were ready for the next step: hitched side by side, four abreast in one team- a common farming hitch.

I hitched the four to a large felled willow tree about a foot in diameter and thirty feet long. This tree had many branches as do old growth willows, making it a perfect "brush harrow" which levelled and spread the loosened soil -front to back and sideways.

I don't recall what spooked the horses, but it was probably bees that had nests in the mulch of the willow bushes. A bee sting can startle even the oldest calmest horses.

Away they went at a dead run. I had been driving them from the ground. To this day I can't outrun horses! A runaway saddle horse carries you on their back if you can stay in the saddle. Four 1600-pound draft horses is the equivalent of at least six saddle horses. That is a lot of horse and horse mouth to pull on the driving lines.

"Whoa" is an important command. For driving horses that should mean stop right away as the driver does not want to be caught under the equipment.

This team was acting like a mob and fed off the others' fears, sparking the runaway. I did call the whoa a few times until I understood the futility. Just before they hit the standing willow brush at the side of the new field I hollered "whoa", just in case this was a teachable moment. They do stop when they are all tied together by the lines and halter ropes at the front.

So they stopped and I ran following got hold of them, breaking the four horses into two teams. It became a long day by the time each team had worked a couple of hours on their own then being put together in the four-horse abreast team to finish off the evening.

Apparently, it was a funny thing to watch for a spectator.