The Story Of Stormy

As I stated in my last post, Rose seemed to take everything in stride. From tying to trailering, clipping to clomping above her head in the loft not much bothered her. The old gelding I had leased, Indy, was another of those who had seen much of life and had a "Been there, done that" kind of attitude so I just wasn't thinking about much more than just where to unload Stormy as we pulled into the barn drive with our new horse.

Stormy, however, soon gave me much, much more to think about. Dad backed the trailer closer to the barn doors and we all jumped out to be greeted by frantic screams echoing out of our little 2 horse trailer. Undaunted, I hopped up in the trailer with Stormy, clipped a lead to his halter and dad released the bar across the back. The colt shot out of the trailer as if he'd been fired out of a cannon and let loose another shrill whinny. He spun around mid-whinny and got his first look at his new home. His frantic call died in his throat (it literally sounded as if he swallowed it!) as his eyes widened in shock....I realized then he had never seen any barn bigger than the tiny 2 stall shed he had grown up with. In his four years of life he had never seen anything other than the little paddock where he lived and the 2 elderly people who had cared for him. He stood there frozen, legs splayed in what would have been a comical picture if he hadn't been so afraid. I gave his lead rope a gentle tug and took a step forward. Stormy flicked an ear at me but remained riveted to the spot. I stepped back and scratched him under his mane, working in circles back towards his withers. He slowly relaxed his neck and gave me a shaky sigh. I stepped forward again and this time he took one hesitant step forward with me.

We had, of course, gathered an audience. No new arrival at the barn ever went unnoticed! Thankfully no one made a lot of noise or stuck their nose in places it didn't belonged. It took me 15 minutes to walk Stormy the short distance to the barn doors. I paused there and let him get a good look around. When he decided that nothing was going to jump out and eat him he walked beside me down the hallway and into the main barn. I stopped again and gave Stormy the chance to take in his surroundings. He stood with his head nearly vertical, eyes wide and nostrils flared, breathing in deep (if still rather shaky) breaths. The horses that were still in their stalls were peering curiously out at him, even they wondered what his deal was. This time it only took him 5 minutes to relax and I moved farther into the barn. He still walked with his head held up but at least he was moving forward. He looked at EVERYTHING...the sawdust pile (oh yikes...when you breathe on it, it puffs up in your face!), the chickens, the shovels and wheelbarrows we use for the sawdust...nothing missed his inspection as we walked a lap around the barn. He relaxed even more and by our third lap he was quietly walking by my side on a loose lead.

There was sudden movement in our loft and one of the boarders appeared above the stalls. Stormy snorted in surprise and once again he froze splay-legged as he realized (oh the horror!!) that they were ABOVE his head. I stood, waiting to see which way he would bolt as this was obviously more than he could handle after such a traumatic day. He stood bug-eyed for just a second more then started to nervously lick his lips, then he simply turned slowly around and put his back to the scary lady in the loft. He didn't bolt, buck or flee in terror...he just turned his back! I walked him away from the lady in the loft and he came with no hesitation, walked into his stall and showed interest in his hay.

After that first episode with the boarder in the loft, Stormy's way of dealing with scary situations was to simply turn his back on it. He was never violent about it, just slowly pivoted until he was no longer facing whatever it was that frightened him. He was a very fast learner, he learned to lunge, how to stand for the farrier and vet...as long as I was there he was fine. He was still too much for my sister or mother to handle, neither one ever rode him or lead him to the fields to graze. One of my favorite memories of him is one of us down in far back pasture where only a few horses were let out to graze. I had gone down to the pasture to check on him and stopped to sit a while in the shade. Stormy quietly came up and grazed beside me, simply to be in my company. Those were good days, too bad we didn't know those days were numbered...

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.

Remembering Rose

The excitement in the old truck was nearly palpable. After nearly 15 years of waiting, I was headed to the upper corner of the state to check out what might become my very first horse. All my father had told me was that he was a 4 year old Appaloosa gelding and from that little bit of information my imagination took off. I pictured myself galloping through green fields aboard a wildly spotted leopard, or leaping fences on a bright, glossy horse emblazoned with a big blanketed rump!

We pulled into the old farmer's drive and his son directed us towards the barn. The yard was littered with old farm machinery and rusting car bodies that were rapidly being swallowed by weeds. Numerous dogs ran rampant around the property, barking and fighting amongst themselves. I tried to keep my feelings to myself...not everyone was well off and times were rather hard.

"He's back in here." the son said, leading us into a tiny, ramshackle barn. Crowded in with my family (there were 5 of us in total, even my brother had come along to see what all the excitement was about) I couldn't get a good look at him, just barely catching a flash of chocolate colored hide. "We put him in with the filly since we're a little short on room." he explained. He slid open the stall door and grabbed the colt's halter. Like a flash the little red filly rocketed out of the stall and tore off across the property. "Oh don't worry about her." he said. "She's always doing that."

I turned back to the colt and felt all my dreams shrivel and disappear. Gone was the thought of riding a flashy, wildly spotted horse through fields or over fences. What stood before me, tossing his head and jerking on the lead, was a hideous parody of Appaloosa...big, heavy coarse head with a mottled roman nose, small piggy eyes buried in pink speckled flesh, sparse mane and even more sparse tail, seeming to hold a whopping 4 hairs. And to top it all off...two tiny nickle-sized spots marked his haunches, that was all. Determined to make the best of the situation, I reached out to scratch him on the cheek. He yanked his head up and away from me, tightening his lips in what seemed like disgust.

"Oh don't worry about that," the boy drawled, "he's like that with everyone at first. He'll warm up to you in no time." He led the colt outside and tied him up. The wan winter sunlight did nothing to improve his looks. Suddenly there was a pattering of hooves and the little filly came careening around the front of the house. She was a bright cherry red bay with a ridiculously long winter coat that was fluffed out in the cold. It caught the light and she seemed to be surrounded by a bright red glow. She suddenly realized we were there and she skidded to a stop, snorting in surprise. Once she was sure she had our attention however, she pirouetted like a dancer and floated in a beautiful trot back out to the front yard, tail flagged like an Arabian. She paused and looked back at us over her shoulder, making sure we were still watching before she spun once again and pranced back towards us. Halfway there she spun yet again and floated off around the house. I stood mesmerized, caught up in the spell of the little red filly.

 "That's just Rose," he informed us, "she's the last foal we had. A little on the small size." My entire family, even my very non-horsey brother, were mesmerized by this little horse! I heard the son clear his throat and we all rather guiltily turned back to the ugly gelding. My sister and I exchanged a look, neither one of us was very enthusiastic about the boring, bad tempered brown colt when the flashy little filly was dancing around the front of the property.

"Now he's still pretty green," the son said, "but he's got a good walk and trot going and he's a nice trail horse, even goes through water."

"That's nice." I heard my father reply. "How about that other one? The little red one?" Apparently even my father wasn't impressed with the colt!

"Oh she's too young for your girl. She's only about 2, this gelding is what you're looking for!" was his answer. It seemed as if he was pushing us to believe that this coarse little colt was just every girl's dream horse. He started to saddle up the gelding and I watched as the colt again wrinkled his nose and flung his head up, sidling away from the tack. At least he took the bit rather well...with a head toss of course.

At last the colt was saddled and the boy hopped up on him. He headed down the driveway at a plodding pace, the gelding's nose held up and sideways. My father glanced over at me and I did my best to appear excited since I had waited so very long for a horse of my own. Apparently he could tell how unenthusiastic I was since I saw his expression soften.

Little Rose decided to make an appearance at just that moment. She flitted around the ugly colt, weaved in and out around the unruly dogs and side passed through the rusted hunks of cars. She also kept at least one eye and an ear trained on us at all times. She tucked her nose to her chest, shook her head, bucked on the spot...anything to keep us looking at HER and not the colt! According to my father, from the look on my face the filly was already dancing her way into my heart.

The son had coaxed the gelding (with much kicking, clucking and slap with the ends of his reins) into a jarring trot and headed back towards us. The colt still had his head held to the stars and his nose cranked to the right, lips tightened and eyes glaring. The boy yanked him to a stop in front of us and hopped off.

"So...what do you think?" he asked, a big grin plastered on his face. "He's a little rough but with more training he'll even right out."

"Well," my father replied. He glanced my way, I suddenly realized that I could be saddled with this unruly colt if my father gave his ok. Unbidden tears came to my eyes and I turned away, staring at the lovely little filly still dancing around the front yard. "Well, we'll have to talk it over as a family." came my father's voice. "What can you tell me about that filly? Seems my daughter really likes the look of her."

My head spun back and huge grin split my face at his words. Suddenly I forgot about being cold, about the ugly colt and the ramshakle farm. The thought of owning Rose was a dream come true!

"Oh, she isn't for sale." came the reply.

My dreams crashed to the ground, smashed to bits by his words.

"Yeah my dad wants to keep her 'cause she's the last foal out of our good ol' mare that we just sold." he said. I stared at the ground, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. I willed the tears from my eyes and tried to swallow the lump that appeared in my throat. The boy looked at me and cleared his throat, uncomfortable in sudden silence. "but hey, I can ask him if he'd sell her. Sure you don't want to try out the colt though?" he asked.

I never did step up on that colt. Rose was bought that very day, that old farmer said he had watched everything from his house and said he knew when a horse chooses it's rider and that Rose had made it pretty darn clear who she wanted to go with. It's so hard to believe that all this happened nearly 20 years ago. Everything about that day is emblazoned in my mind...the way the snow had melted away except for a few stubborn patches in the shadows, the way the wind whipped the horse's manes, the smell of the barn, the sun glistening off the old chrome bumpers of the cars, the staccatto rap of Rose's hooves on the gravel driveway. It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just a single step....this journey started with a flying, floating trot.