BALZAC — Two semi-trailer truck drivers are being praised for playing a little blacktop rodeo when they used their big rigs to safely steer an AWOL horse off a busy highway north of Calgary and prevent the chance of a collision.
Airdrie RCMP say they got word around 4 a.m. Monday from an Edmonton woman who said her horse had escaped from a racetrack stable in the Balzac area.
The horse was later spotted galloping down the middle of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway near the community when the truck drivers worked together with their semis to corral it in a ditch, then control it with harness fashioned from a tow strap.
“I think the horse had kind of stopped in the headlights and started to move toward a ditch,” said Const. Dan Martin, an RCMP spokesman.
“One truck stopped and blocked the horse from getting back on the highway. The other driver stopped to help and, between the two of them, they were able to approach it and put the harness on. Police arrived shortly after.”
Martin said it helped that the horse appeared to be calm and that one of the drivers seems to know his way around animals.