Horses are generally sure-footed animals with a few notable exceptions, but even they occasionally slip or fall. I well remember crossing a scree field in northern British Columbia while on a mountain goat hunt. Dislodged rocks rolled for hundreds of yards as we angled across a steep scree field along the edge of a mountain. I nervously pulled my feet from the stirrups in the event that the horse decided to roll downhill.
We were just entering the steepest part of the slope when my horse managed to put all four hooves on rocks big enough to allow him to surf down the shoulder of that mountain. I suspect that those four long hoof-marks and my two drag-marks are still gracing the slope of that mountain.
