An elderly horse had the drama of his life on Sunday.

Surprise, age 34, was outside his paddock while his owner was clearing a walkway to the barn. Possibly frightened by the noise of the snowblower, he bolted down a cleared path and tried to jump a fence into the larger paddock.

He lost his footing in a snow bank and then got his leg wedged under the paddock fence. "He tried to get over the fence, and he slid," said Jayme Bastiansen, whose parents own Surprise.

His owners tried to free him for about 20 minutes, then called Natick firefighters, who after responding, cut through the fence. The firefighters also used straps connected to the owner's backhoe, to hoist him up, to help get him back on his feet.

An hour after the ordeal, Surprise — half quarterhorse, half shetland pony — was back in his stall, covered with his blanket, and eating hay.

Surprise, who's lived his entire life at the barn on South Main Street, weighs more than 1,000 pounds. He was cold and "starting to shiver" when firefighters arrived, Bastiansen said.

"They did a great job," she said.