Horse Times Two

Rose fit into her new life seamlessly. Being novice horse owners, we never actually asked what things she had been trained for, such as tying, leading or picking up her feet. I just expected her to do these things and surprisingly...she did them. I never thought twice about tying her up, walking to the ladder at the end of the barn, clambering up and stomping across the hay loft to where we stored our tack...directly above her head. I never expected her to freak out at me leaning over the edge of the loft and reaching down to scratch the tips of her ears. I never knew how good I had it. It took our second horse to teach me otherwise.

My sister and I shared the responsibilities of Rose for that first summer. By the time autumn was rolling in it was apparent my sister was getting a little angry at playing second fiddle to the little filly. Since I was the one with the horse experience in our family, I did most of the work with training. My sister mainly got the job of stall mucker or mud scraper. She started dropping huge hints that she thought she deserved a horse of her own. And since my mother seemed to give her whatever she asked for, mother went on the search for a second horse.

Like I said before, most of my family had no idea about horses. I had been riding a friend's horse for quite a few years and had leased one for another year before we bought Rose. My mother and sister however had little to zero experience. Neither had ridden before and had only gotten close to a horse a handful of times until Rose came along. So it came a huge surprise when my mother waltzed in my room one day and told me she had bought my sister a new horse. She hadn't done any research, she hadn't asked any questions...she simply picked up the paper, flipped to the ads and found the first horse that had the bad luck to be the only breed she could remember....an Arabian. Well...Half-Arabian, but close enough. She called the guy up and told him she would buy the horse, sight unseen. Anyone else hear alarm bells going off?

Two days later we all packed back up in the truck and drove over an hour to take a look at this so called "wonderful" horse. We pulled into the driveway and I had to say that this farm was leaps and bounds above the one we got Rose from. No dogs roaming the property, no rusting hunks of metal. The front yard was well groomed and the flower beds neatly manicured. The elderly gentleman that met us at the door however looked as if a good stiff breeze would knock him over. His equally frail wife greeted us warmly and offered us some iced tea. I started getting butterflies in my stomach...I definitely had a bad feeling about this, those alarm bells just kept jangling in the back of my head. These two gentle old souls didn't seem as if they would be able to handle anything but the quietest of equines.

"Come on back here and take a look at him." He offered, "I closed the barn door so he'll be outside where you can see him." Hhmmm...that was certainly an odd statement. We walked around the side of the house and got our first look at our new horse. The small bay colt had froze at the sound of voices, his head flung up high and nostrils flared. There was no doubt about him being half Arabian, his finely chiseled head and high, arched neck gave that much away. Whatever his other half was, it was certainly a mystery to me.

Having learned our lesson with Rose (and being told how crazy we were to have bought a horse without asking what things she knew.) I asked the kind gentleman a little about his, eeerrr...umm..our, horse.

"Well, Stormy there is four years old and is one half Arabian and one half Paint," he replied. "We bought his mother at an auction and we thought she might be a little lonely. We bred her to the stallion up the road so she could have a nice foal to keep her company."

"Alarm! Alarm!! ALARM!!!" Yep, those bells were ringing loud and clear.

"Yes, she was a good mother," the old farmer's wife chimed in, "it was so sad when she died on us a year later. Stormy missed her something awful. He cried and cried for nearly a week. After that he was never the same."

"Never the same?" I heard my father ask. "Just what does that mean?" Apparently he had some alarm bells going off as well.

"Oh well he used to be so sweet and come up with his mother for scratching and petting. He used to love to be groomed. Now he hardly comes up to us at all, mostly just stand there and looks at us. We just dump his feed in the bucket there and go on about things. He doesn't seem to want to have much to do with us. He's so lonely, you see."

"Uh huh." I said, not believing what I was hearing. "So, how is he to tie? For the farrier? The vet?" I asked.

"Well," he paused guiltily, "I haven't had to tie him since he was a foal but he's pretty good for the vet and the blacksmith...after a bit." came the reply. He opened the gate, the chain jangling off the metal gate set my teeth on edge.  

The clatter of the chain had startled Stormy into a frantic trot around his paddock. I had to admit, he could certainly move! He had a springy, elastic trot that just looked so smooth and effortless. "Is he broke to ride?" I asked without thinking.

"We did have a guy come out a couple of years ago to work with him and he got him going pretty good under saddle. But it's been a few years since any one's done anything with him." the wife answered.

I looked at my mother. She was grinning ear to ear thinking she had done a great job at finding a horse for my sister. "Alarm! Alarm! Alarm!!" was still shrilling away in my head however.

Mom paid for Stormy and we left, scheduling to pick him up the next day. The next morning we hitched up our trailer and drove out to pick the colt up. My sister had this smug smile plastered to her face and my mother had that look of that cat that's gotten into the cream. We arrived to chaos. The old farmer had apparently gone out to try to catch Stormy and things hadn't gone so great. The colt was galloping in crazed circles on the lead rope around him, nearly dragging the poor old man off his feet. I could hear the horse's ragged breathing and see the whites of his eyes from across the paddock. Every so often he would let loose a high pitched, frantic sounding whinny. I glanced at my mother and sister. Both had identical faces...gone were the smug smiles, the air of victory. Instead, my mother's jaw had fell open in shock and my sister had gone quite pale. I think her eyes matched the colt's, wide eyed in shock. Stormy let loose another shrill scream and without thought I whistled as I had at Indy, the horse I leased.

Stormy's head whipped around and he froze, staring at me. He stood, as if on tip-toe...on edge and terrified. The old man yanked on his lead and the colt bolted. I stepped between the fence boards and made my way up next to the elderly gent. I took Stormy's lead from him and nearly had my arm wrenched out of socket when the colt hit the end of the lead. He frantically whinnied again and once again I whistled in return. The elegant head snapped up, the white star at it's center gleamed in the sun, little black tipped ears pricked towards me. Stormy turned in to face me, snorting, once again frozen in place. I gave him a second to catch his breath then took a step forward. He took off once again, one ear cranked in my direction.

"Hey, hey, heeeeeey." I said to him. I made sure he had a little slack in the rope instead of bracing and hanging off his face. He nervously flitted around me and I repeated the phrase quietly. Ever so slowly, the frantic look left his eyes, the tightness left him and he slowed from a headlong gallop to a weary trot. I told him to whoa and was rewarded with not only a stop but he stopped and faced me. He was soaked in sweat, it ran off him as if I had turned a hose on him. I turned away from him, waited a few seconds, then stepped towards him...sideways. He shifted as if he was about to take off again and I told him whoa once again. He settled and finally let me come up next to him. Still not looking at him I reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched but otherwise stood still. I scratched up towards the underside of his mane, back towards his withers, down between his chest and he rewarded me with a huge shaky sigh. I'm pretty sure we bonded right then and there. Both of us worn and sweaty from our battle, we leaned against each other and caught our breaths. I wiped the sweat away from his face and led him to get a little water. He let me lead him up and onto the trailer, a miracle itself since apparently he had never seen one nor been in one in his life.

Mom loudly declared Stormy was too dangerous for my sister and refused to let her get near him. Rose was designated her horse and she had full charge of the little filly after that. I can't say I wasn't a little jealous, she got the wonderful, smart, solid little filly and I had this weedy, spastic colt just dropped in my lap. But he taught me all sorts of interesting things...like how you CAN teach a horse to trust you, how the sound of your voice can reassure them when they are frightened and most importantly he taught me to trust him...but that is for another time.