Not all horse trouble comes from the animals you actually ride. In a pack train, horses are tied to one another with bailing twine so that if all hell breaks loose, the twine will snap and the animals will not get all tangled up—at least in theory.
Helping to move a pack train in the Artic one year, we had a propane tank fall from a panier and clang against a rock. At this point, all six of the pack animals decided to swap positions and started bucking off everything that they were carrying. Propane tanks, equipment and food went flying in all directions. This included several large bags of flour, which promptly opened up, covering us with the white powder and making everyone as pale as I had become. Not to be outdone, the saddle horses also decided to join in the festivities. It took hours to untangle the horses, find everything they had bucked off and then repack them.
