Cole and I get into a "Situation"

Cole and I get into a "Situation"

Ellen, Kevin and I went out on an ordinary trail ride.  When we got to the second river crossing, Dante was giving her a hard time, so she told us to cross first.  Cole went right into the water and started to cross.  He is a very dependable river crosser, so imagine my surprise when he planted his feet and refused to step forward about one third of the way across.  

The way we usually cross is through an opening of large rocks.  The horses have to step down a little slope and then water gets deeper--but not that much deeper.  That is where Cole stalled out.  This was so unlike him.  I tried to get him to go forward, and he flat out refused.  Downstream a ways, where a tree leans over the water, Ellen had seen some fishing line hanging down.  This got me worried--were we tangled in some fishing line?  I couldn't see anything, but Cole was very serious about this.  Two year ago, we did get caught in some fishing line, Cole got cut and required stitches.  If there is one thing horses will remember is when they get hurt. 

He wouldn't go forward--and I didn't want him to at this point, so I thought I would try turning him upstream to walk along the pile of rocks.  He did turn parallel to the rocks--but stalled out and refused to do anything more.  We were in a "situation."  I didn't know what to do--and I was very worried.  If I asked him to do the wrong thing, it might result in him getting hurt.  We just stood there.

Ellen got off Dante and walked to the river's edge to see if she could see anything, but she couldn't.  I tried backing Cole up, but he refused that, too.  I was contemplating dismounting to see if there was anything in the water, but I would have to be very careful I didn't land on the rock pile.  It was possible, but tricky.  I asked Cole to back up again, and he did take one step--but no more.  I then tried forward.  He slowly stepped forward and I directed him over the pile of rocks to get back to where Ellen was.  She said he was lifting his hind legs very high.  I just trusted him as he carefully stepped his way through the rocks.  Once I got to dry land, I got off and inspected him.  I was so relieved that there were no injuries.  We then crossed the river via the ford and went on our merry way.

After the ride, we all went to the river to investigate.  We couldn't find anything, but the fishing line that was in the tree was gone.  We will never know, but Cole was very serious when he said there was a problem, and I believe something was there.  He must have dislodged it.  We cleared out some of the rocks that were in our crossing path and called it a day.