Are Western saddles designed in such a way as to make dragging likely? With the standard saddles used in the UK the stirrup hangs from a straight open bar and immediately detaches from the saddle if the rider comes off.
If the map is accurate, it looks like they entered the water in a controlled fashion, including the initial loop. If the horse did step off an underwater ledge, they could immediately have been in trouble both of them, especially if she was still tethered. Free of each other, they might have been able to save thineself, recover and reach the shore safely. Now, if that chaos was causes by wild life that forced them into the water and followed them, that too could account for what we see. There's a reason the horse (with the phone) didn't swim directly back to shore and IMO that's key to what happened here. Horse was either fighting against a foe or fighting against the rider, both of them flailing.
I wouldn't say they are designed in a way to make dragging MORE likely, but the stirrups tend to be a bit more "open" (for lack of a better term) then english style stirrups. English style stirrups also seem to offer more safety release type stirrups then Western riding.
I'm going to assume for the moment the track is correct. Whether the track location is exposed bank or shallow water isnt known to us. The lake is a dammed reservoir which might make the water level not fluctuate that much? Either way there should be visible hoofprints that the pair was out there or not.
This is a good observation. Was she turning him/her to regain control or had she lost her balance and was hanging off the left side trying to pull herself back up? I would REALLY be interested to know the condition of the horse and tack when found...
What makes me sad...if a head injury did happen....is the lack of helmet wearing in the Western riding community. I wish it would catch on.
In picturing a runaway motorboat, circling around a displaced driver (where the boat snd propellor become a deadly threat to that driver), I wonder if her position relative to the horse pulled it into that tight spiral to the left because that's the side she may have fallen. Whether she was panicked, the horse must have been. She either held on as long as she could or was entangled into that hold released.
www.the-sun.com
"...Rouns may have fallen due to strong winds reported in the area on October 4."New info this article from The US Sun
Missing woman's phone & horse found - cops reveal she sent photo after vanishing
THE search for a 27-year-old woman who went missing while horseback riding has intensified after deputies located her horse and cell phone. Meghan Rouns was last seen leaving her home in Helena, Mo…
A snippet (Bold by me):
Lewis and County Sheriff Leo Dutton told The U.S. Sun a search crew located Rouns' horse up the hill from Hauser Lake on Saturday.
Rouns' cell phone and a tracker were also uncovered in a saddle bag.
Dutton told The U.S. Sun that search efforts are being prioritized on the lake, where they believe Rouns may have fallen due to strong winds reported in the area on October 4.
"We believe something happened that spooked the horse to get it into the waters. We just don't know what yet," Dutton told The U.S. Sun.
The sheriff said investigators have ruled out foul play as a possible factor in Rouns' disappearance.
"Her horse was found just up the hill from the lake, so this has become our primary area to search from the evidence we have gathered," Willy Wegner, the operations lieutenant of Lewis and Clark County Search and Rescue, told NBC affiliate KTVH-TV.
According to a "past weather" website, there were significant wind gusts.
I don't know the area or elevation but one misstep, bracing against a harsh gale, on a narrow crag could plummet them into the water, horse and rider entrapped, utter chaos until the horse could break free. If she wasn't injured by the fall, the horse thrashing in water and herself needing air, virtually unsurvivable.
Ugh,45 to 50 mph gusts. That would definitely spook a horse.
Why would they need to check her husbands stuff?
If the track is accurate, it's amazing what detail there is. This path in green displays a horseman's "discussion" with a horse not wanting to go forward to an obstacle, like a riverbank:New info this article from The US Sun
Missing woman's phone & horse found - cops reveal she sent photo after vanishing
THE search for a 27-year-old woman who went missing while horseback riding has intensified after deputies located her horse and cell phone. Meghan Rouns was last seen leaving her home in Helena, Mo…
A snippet (Bold by me):
Lewis and County Sheriff Leo Dutton told The U.S. Sun a search crew located Rouns' horse up the hill from Hauser Lake on Saturday.
Rouns' cell phone and a tracker were also uncovered in a saddle bag.
Dutton told The U.S. Sun that search efforts are being prioritized on the lake, where they believe Rouns may have fallen due to strong winds reported in the area on October 4.
"We believe something happened that spooked the horse to get it into the waters. We just don't know what yet," Dutton told The U.S. Sun.
The sheriff said investigators have ruled out foul play as a possible factor in Rouns' disappearance.
"Her horse was found just up the hill from the lake, so this has become our primary area to search from the evidence we have gathered," Willy Wegner, the operations lieutenant of Lewis and Clark County Search and Rescue, told NBC affiliate KTVH-TV.
