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Last autumn, having decided I was sick of listenning to a diesel tractor
when I work on our old homestead, I decided to buy a team and set aside
distance and showing for awhile (breed Gitane and work with the
youngster-this would be ample).
Went to the local horse auction to buy tack. Didn't even look in the pens
(as I always do because maybe the perfect 2 year old is waiting out there
for $75 -ha, ha) Among the usual quarter horse types suddenly there
appeared a pathetically thin ,obviously pure Arab into the ring. They
couldn't even get a bid! The local meat dealer spoke up for $100. I saw
red! Several bids back and forth and I owned her. I went out into the dark
and mud to see what I had bought and it was sad. It was weaving furiously
and on the edge of starvation. Good, grief, how was I to justify this to
my patient husband?
I had her trucked straight to a friends boarding stable so our horses
wouldn't run off what flesh she did have and a month of selenium, worming,
trimming, and feed and more feed and a huge deeply bedded box and inside at
the slightest sign of rain and other deluxe care that my tough bunch don't
get and Impulse began to look like the show horse she had oviously once
been.
She had been yahooed about on and it took some weeks to remind her that
there were other speeds than full out and full stop and that she could quit
throwing her head every 3 seconds and that her mouth would be left alone.
But lordy who would buy this paperless, hot little mare? I needed her like
the proverbial hole in the head. Luckily ex-rancher friends needed horse
#2 and like a lively ride. So she has gone to 20 acres of grass and trail
riding with knowledgable people and has given up weaving (in this setting)
and probably thinks she has gone to heaven.
The month's board and extra care doubled her price so she went from
ridiculously cheap to very reasonable but she would have been a real
project for anyone wanting an endurance horse. (Cheap would have meant
very time consuming.)
Immediatley after wiping my brow and promising myself I wouldn't strain my
pocketbook and Keith's patience ever again the farrier asked me if I would
like to lease a really bad Arab. Dangerous to handle on the ground and
little ridden. Had just split open his assistant's head. A free lease?
NO, I WOULDN'T! I have a child who feeds horses for me and I value my life
and if I worked this beast into shape the owner could very well come and
retrieve itI
Then a friend called from a tack store to say there was a young woman
putting up an ad, almost in tears because she had to get rid of a difficult
horse immediately and it might have to go to meat in 2 weeks if no buyer
appeared. Rang a bell!
But to meat.... I tried him out in a tiny pen. Know what a teenager acts
like when grounded to his bedroom for a few days? The environment was
driving him nuts and he had her completely buffaloed. The little turkey
bucked me off on the second trial but I bought him anyway-by the pound.
She had had a quote from the dealer and was willing to let him go for that
price and glad it wasn't for dog food. In riding him, my instincts told me
there wasn't anything wrong with him that less grain and more exercise and
training wouldn't solve. He'd been ridden only 30 times. He was pretty
thin, had no papers, and to my eye somewhat homely but I liked him.
And , yes I know better than take a new and green horse anywhere dangerous
but we had guests who really wanted to ride up the Enderby cliffs trail so
we trailered him directly away from his pen and went straight up-literally!
He had never been on a trail and at one point he stepped off it! I bailed
out, caught my footing on the scree, dug in my heels, hauled on the reins
and he managed to swing around and scramble back up. We walked up the rest
until we got to the old road. He behaved admirably thereafter.
The farrier came by in two weeks and asked if we had done a personality
transplant on this little guy. Chased about by the other horses in an area
big enough to run in, ridden by someone fairly unflappable, and-what would
you say-taught that he could depend on his rider when the chips were really
down-? he bonded to me and became easy to catch and generally a good guy.
He's one of the plesantest, smartest, boldest, smoothest hosres I've ever
had the pleasure to ride.
And now to complete the Cinderella aspect-the breeder tracked me down and
the dam's owner and his papers are coming through and the breeder says he's
good enough to show at halter as well as whatever I can manage in the
performance end. So, what the heck-we'll stick him in the Arabian
Encampment
Now I'm on everyone's sucker list and agents are phoning me..listen there's
this horse we can't list 'cus it's too thin, it's a real shame, it's a good
horse...
No, No, I didn't mean to spend money on those two. But you say the horse
may go for meat?
And I still don't have that team!
Ann
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