A Horse With No Rider

A Horse With No Rider is the ninth episode of Season 10 of Heartland. It aired December 4, 2016.

Summary
An out-of-town horse clinic takes a dangerous turn for Amy, Tim and Georgie. Meanwhile, Lou’s flight home is delayed and Jack is caught in the middle when Mitch’s elevated status at Heartland begins to make Peter feel like an outsider. When an endangered bear is shot by poachers, Ty and Bob fight to save its life.

Plot
Even though she's six months pregnant, Amy is still adamant about leading a clinic up in the mountains. She, Tim, and Georgie leave Heartland after lunch, with Spartan in tow. They head up into the mountains and arrive at the ranch of a horse owner named Karen, who is hosting the clinic.

Meanwhile, Ty and Bob are surveying the landscape in Mongolia, looking for Gobi bears to help. They are stopped on a road by several armed men claiming to have information about a dead female bear and an injured cub nearby. They ask if Ty and Bob had any money, and were told no. They let Ty and Bob pass, but not without leaving the vets with a feeling of anxiousness.

Amy, Tim, and Georgie finish up the clinic and are packing up to go when a woman pulls up in a truck and trailer with her horse, desperately pleading with Amy to help them. She says that while her horse was the image of perfection when they bought it, the creature had become restless and unpredictable, with tendencies to gallop and spook easily. Reluctantly, Amy agrees to take a look at him.

Ty and Bob find the dead female bear the men told them about. They quickly find small paw prints in the sand, accompanied by a trail of blood. Ty and Bob realize that while the cub was still alive, it was most likely injured and in danger. They grab some medical equipment from the truck and hurry to follow the tracks.

The scene shifts to Amy in a round pen with the horse. Like the woman said, the horse is restless and gallops around the. Georgie notes that he just wants to run. Nodding her head, Amy switches places with Georgie outside the pen and encourages Georgie to give it a try. Georgie lunges him around the pen, admiring the horse's white coat and energy. After a few minutes, she slows him and mimics Amy's tactic of turning her back, and the horse comes right up to her, huffing softly. The owner sighs, remarking, "That was beautiful." She begs Amy to allow her to bring the horse for Heartland, saying how much it would mean to her after all she's read of the miracle girl and Heartland. Tim tries to convince Amy to say no, but Amy agrees. Delighted, the owner goes back to get her trailer.

From the side of a hill, Ty and Bob spot the young cub pacing back and forth, pitifully mewing for its mother. They try to approach it but the bear cub runs off. They follow the sound of its mewing and find it hiding in a small cave. Bob shoots it with a tranquilizer gun and he and Ty race back to camp with the little bear in tow. They manage to unload the bear with the help of the other volunteers and take the creature into a yurt serving as an operating room. However, in the distance, the armed men from before are watching all of this go down.

After a while with no sign of the owner or the trailer, Amy and Tim go around the corner to look for her. They are stunned to find no one there. The woman had driven off with her trailer, but left her horse with Amy, Tim, and Georgie. Frustrated with herself at helping without even finding out the name of the woman or the animal, Amy reluctantly loads the horse into the trailer with Spartan. The three wave goodbye to Karen and drive off. Tim turns onto an alternate route hoping to take a shortcut, when tragedy strikes.

Ty and Bob are setting up to operate on the young cub when they hear a loud banging at the door. Confused, one of the volunteers go over to see what it is and three or four of the armed men from earlier storm inside. They demand that they get a reward one of the men claimed he had heard about from a local village. Ty and Bob are bewildered as they had never heard of a reward, and told the leader as such. The leader insisted, getting increasingly angry. One of the volunteers stepped forward and admitted that he had spread rumors of a reward because he thought it would help the cause. Ty is obviously frustrated at being put in such a position but rations with the leader, pointing out that the group doesn't deserve a reward because they never helped Bob and Ty find the cub. The men leave resentfully and Ty and Bob get back to the operation at hand.

Amy, Tim, and Georgie swerve to avoid a sudden rockslide and end up crashing into a pile of boulders. The three get out of the car and are mostly uninjured, but Tim is quickly revealed to have a bad head injury that is interfering with his vision and his walking. The horse trailer is dented and fishtailed behind the truck. Both horses are extremely panicked and Tim and Amy rush over to get Spartan and the other horse out. Tim yells at Amy to get out of the way for fear of Amy getting seriously injured by the stressed horses while 6 months pregnant. She reluctantly listens and Tim successfully leads Spartan out of the trailer. The other horse is still inside, now screaming and kicking in all directions. Tim and Amy try to get either door to unlatch, but both are stuck after being damaged in the crash. Despite his head injury, Tim decides to take Spartan to go find help at Karen's ranch.

After waiting for about half an hour, Amy and Georgie see Spartan galloping back riderless.