Horse Sense

The Swamp Road Chronicles^®

"Horse Sense"

Here is My Story:

My husband and I had a horse farm and riding stable on Palmer Rd. very near Swamp Road. We had made arrangements with some of the local landowners to allow our clients to ride across their fields after harvest was completed. We had our own trails where people could ride, but people like to ride way out into the countryside, and our trails weren't very long.

One tract of land we could use required the riders to cross Swamp Road just north of the creek. The horses always began to act up when we approached the Old Blackstone place where the killings took place. The closer we got, the more skittish they became, so we learned to stay away, you don't want anyone getting thrown from a horse.

One thing that was very unusual was whenever we and our clients rode near Swamp Road, especially near the Blackstone place, was that the horses, all of them, would be going along nicely and then, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, they would stop. They would refuse to go forward no matter how much you urged them. They stiffened up and their ears pointed straight up and their eyes got as wide as they could get. After a few moments, the horses would relax again and then move on ahead.

I believe that they could see something that we couldn't see, something that stopped them in their tracks until it moved away. We riders could never see anything that might have caused it, but something crossed their path that the horses didn't like. Animals are like that.

For various health and financial reasons we sold the farm in 2001 and moved into town. I don't know if anyone still rides horses around there and has things happen, but we sure did. It was all very strange and a little frightening.

As submitted by Clara Hawthorne, New Albany, Ohio December 14, 2022

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