Rode hard and put up wet

Posted by Sauerkraut on January 26, 2001

In Reply to: Rode hard and put up wet posted by ESC on January 26, 2001

: : What does this mean and where did it come from? Please settle this argument.

: Rode hard and put up wet. It refers to riding a horse "hard" to exhaustion and putting him up "wet," rather than brushing him off and cooling him down. Or whatever one does with a sweaty horse.

We'll, that's exactly what one does with a horse that has been "rode hard." See to the horse's needs before one's own needs. The phrase implies that an emergency occurred, and that once the horse had responded beyond normal expectations, it was abandoned.

As currently used, it means that something was used very hard to accomplish an objective, and then thrown aside because it was no longer immediately useful.