How do you measure time? For Clay McCullar, a span of seconds on October 9 seemed an eternity.

It had been raining hard, then turned to a drizzle at dusk, as McCullar pulled away from a truck stop near Muleshoe, Texas, bound for the Sun Coast Cutting Horse Futurity in Las Vegas. He was driving a Peterbuilt and pulling a 30-foot aluminum trailer with five show horses, including 6-year-old Duals Play Kit, a multiple NCHA champion and earner of nearly $250,000.

McCullar, a top non-pro competitor, manages 4 M Ranch in Baird, TX, owned by his father, Meredith McCullar. Christy, Clay’s wife, was also in the truck, along with Stacy Shanley, who works for the ranch.

As he pulled back onto Hwy 84 heading toward Clovis, McCullar accelerated gradually, mindful of Clovis’ reputation as a speed trap. He had just checked the speedometer – it read 65 mph – when the trailer suddenly fishtailed.

“I don’t know what caused it, but it felt like a train had broadsided the backend of the trailer and knocked it toward the median between the northbound and southbound lanes,” he remembered. “The trailer swung around and was perpendicular to me. It looked like it was going to come all the way around and smack the truck.”

The force of the careening trailer flung the Peterbuilt across the highway and in the instant before what would have been impact, it broke away. McCullar watched in horror as the trailer rolled over and over before coming to land upside-down on its roof.

“With the momentum, it looked just like a log rolling down a hill,” he recalled. “It rolled four or five times and I couldn’t do anything, but sit there and watch.”

Although free of the trailer, the truck was also out of control and sliding in the same direction toward the median. It came to rest upright against the trailer. McCullar, Christy and Stacy were shaken, but unscathed.

McCullar dreaded going inside the trailer. All was eerily quiet. He could see horses’ legs through the trailer windows, but the only way he could get inside was to pry open the small escape door.

“I expected the worst,” he admitted. “I thought that if they were alive, we would have to put them down. But when I opened that door, four horses popped up on their feet.”

One-by-one, McCullar cut the lead ropes, led the horses through the two-foot wide escape door, and handed them to passersby who had stopped to help. In the meantime, a hand from Allsup Ranch in Clovis, had been alerted and was on his way with a trailer.

It was dark and raining, when McCullar went back into the trailer for the fifth horse, which he had not seen nor heard. As he picked his way through partitions that had been torn out of place and flung about, he spotted her – trapped underneath panels that the other four horses had been standing on, when the trailer came to rest. Much to his relief, she got to her feet, when the panels were lifted.

By the time the trailer arrived from Allsups Ranch, all of the horses were grazing and all loaded into the new trailer willingly. When they disembarked at Allsups Ranch, a veterinarian was waiting.

To everyone’s amazement, although they were skinned up, scratched and bruised, none of the horses suffered injuries that required stitches or special treatment. McCullar credits Stacy for saving their legs by insisting that they be cushioned and wrapped before the trip, something that McCullar had never done before.

“If we had not have done that, I think it really would have been bad,” he pointed out. “They ended up standing on the ceiling of the roof and the roof looked like a cheese grater. It had ripped open like a pop-top and there were sharp edges sticking in and out of it. But none of their legs were cut and I know it was because of those wraps.”

McCullar is also grateful that he was driving the Peterbuilt, rather than a pickup; that his pregnant neighbor Lindy Merryman decided at the last minute not to ride along; and that no other vehicles were involved.

“It happened so fast, but it didn’t really hit me until the next day,” he said. “Then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m a born again Christian and I’ve heard people talk about feeling the hand of God. It was so powerful, it almost brings me to tears thinking about it and what could have happened.

“They say that God moves in mysterious ways, but there wasn’t anything mysterious about that.”