Ōpōtiki hero Chase Gage saves horse from Waioeka River flood in dramatic rescue

He was surrounded by swift, brown and rising floodwaters, riding a horse he barely knew and guiding a second he’d just cut free from neck-deep water, but Chase Gage never felt any fear.

“Nah”, the Waioeka Pa dad said when the Herald asked if he was afraid during his dramatic rescue in the flooded Waioeka River near Ōpōtiki this morning.

“The horse [I was riding] was confident, as long as it felt I was confident.”

Gage (Ngāti Ira, Te Whakatōhea) certainly doesn’t consider himself a hero, even though the horse he rescued was tied to a post and would likely have drowned if he hadn’t come to help.

“It’s just what we do around here.”

If anything, it was Kotiro – the horse he borrowed from his stepdaughter for the rescue – who deserved the spotlight, the 30-year-old said.

“The horse I rode is the hero behind this. She’s still a young horse, but she’s a bush horse. This is what she does – she rides up the river.”

Several people watched from high ground as Chase Gage, on his stepdaughter's horse Kotiro, rescued a tethered horse trapped in floodwaters in the Waioeka River in Ōpōtiki this morning. Photo / Screengrab from video supplied Georgina Hudson

It was a rainy but otherwise normal morning at home when a phone call alerted Gage to a horse trapped in floodwaters near Waioeka Bridge in Ōpōtiki.

“I just got a phone call from the uncle, because we’re quite known for horses around Ōpōtiki … he said, ‘There’s a horse stuck in the flood’, and I was just, ‘Oh s***, I won’t be long’.”

Stopping on the way to borrow Kotiro - who was paddocked nearby – Gage arrived about 7.30am to discover he’d have to ride through 100m of floodwaters to reach the stranded horse.

Clad in shorts and singlet, with a pouched knife and riding bareback, he set off to help as others watched and filmed on their phones from dry land.

“Yeah, she was quite flooded … but I just knew straight away I’ll be able to get there.

“As soon as I’d seen the horse I knew, f***, just get in there and beat the next [rise in water] or high tide, just get to that horse and cut the rope.”

Despite the rain, it wasn’t cold, he said.

“The river was actually quite warm, and the body heat from the horse kept me warm.”

Asked what was going through his mind during the roughly 20-minute rescue, Gage laughed.

“Oh, just get to the horse, just ride the current. [And] I had another plan if my plan wasn’t gonna go to plan – just go with the current and just swim on the angle, and don’t panic.”

Chase Gage with the rescued horse. Photo / Screengrab from video supplied by Radio 1XX Newsroom

When he and Kotiro, which he’d only ridden once before, eventually reached the stranded horse, the post it was tied to was submerged. The animal was stranded on a patch of land with water depths ranging from waist to neck-high, Gage said.

“Bit more rain and the next high tide, not even that, it could have been gone.”

He quickly cut the rope and began the return journey.

At one point, he had to give the horse a push after it got stuck in rapids, but man and both horses eventually made it to safety.

The rescued horse had since been taken to “a nice shed with hay”, and didn’t seem traumatised, Gage said.

“He’s quite a tough breed.”

The owner was overseas but Gage understood others had been caring for it.

Chase Gage and his son Te AtirauAriki Gage, 8, on their horse Te Ara. Photo / Georgina Hudson

Gage, who with his partner Georgina Hudson runs Native Treks in the warmer months, has been riding all his life, and was at times bemused by the fuss over his early-morning heroics.

Today’s conditions were “just the usual kind of flood that you might get with a bit of heavy rain”, he said.

“I love riding in those … I took my family - the other day - up the flood, in the bush. It’s good.”

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.