Why do I love my horse? I could just say that is a silly question, but I have worked with enough horses in my life to know how you can sometimes be lucky enough to come across one who reaches you on a deeper level. My first horse, Sky, was one of them. He was the only horse I went to look at – I knew as soon as I met him that he was the right horse for me. He passed away at 30 and I still miss him. In college there was a school horse named Oscar who made an immediate connection with me. When he was lying down snoozing in his stall he would let me sit against him and put his head in my lap, out in the field he would follow me around and every time he heard my voice he would nicker. A year after I graduated I came back to visit and he got so excited when he saw me it made me cry. That was a tough one, as I don’t know what happened with him when he retired. I had my name in his file to adopt him if needed, but I never heard where he went. That was really hard. Now I have another one who stole my heart! I work at the second oldest SPCA in the US where I am the Assistant Farm Manager. We normally get 4 or 5 horses a year on average as cruelty cases that we rehab and (hopefully) adopt out to new homes. Back in the fall of 2006 we had a case involving a 27 yr. old Thoroughbred mare, a 17 yr. old Standardbred gelding, a 6 yr. old TB stallion and a 4 month TB foal whose dam had to be euthanized the day before due to severe colic. The foal was packed with worms and severely emaciated, weighing only 168 pounds and looking about the size of a week old foal at the most. We named her “Wee Whinny Widget” as she was so tiny and had such a faint whinny you almost couldn’t hear it.

For the first month we weren’t sure if she was going to make it as she was very weak and kept colicking as we slowly tried to kill off the parasites. After a lot of nursing care she made it and also decided I made a good replacement mom. I got sucked in – how do you say no to that? I really had been hoping for my next horse to be good for classical dressage and I had no idea what she would turn out like after her rough start, but finding her another home would have been difficult on many levels. She started to get really cute so everybody wanted to adopt her, but she had issues from her initial handling. Apparently she wasn’t kept with her dam at first, but in a stall across the aisle and was put with her mom a few times a day to nurse until someone told her owner that she needed to stay with the mare all the time. As a result, she doesn’t handle being kept in a stall well if the door is closed. If she can come and go as she pleases, she is fine but otherwise she walks or frantically runs back and forth depending on her stress level. As for other horses, she has a hard time having normal relationships with them, as she didn’t get much of a chance as a baby to learn how that works. She was so weak at first we couldn’t turn her out with the bigger horses in her group, only our llamas, sheep and goats. As she got stronger, she annoyed the adult horses as she wanted to run and play while they wanted to hang out and nap so she got chased and kicked at a bit. The others got adopted fairly quickly so this left only the llamas and our mini horse for some company as the sheep and goats didn’t want to play that much, either. Through all this, she would still rather be near me than out with the others most of the time and would always come running if I called her name so visitors could see how she had grown.

Now I am in the process of getting a barn up in my yard so she can live the way she is happiest – with access to a pasture directly from her stall so she can choose if she wants to be in or out, no matter what the weather is like. I am giving her a bit longer to mature before starting her under saddle than most people do because she had such a rough start. Last fall we started lunging and doing some in-hand work in full tack and she took to it well. My hope is that she will like the mental and physical challenge of classical dressage. She is a very bright horse who seems to like figuring out what I want her to do and learning new things. I can’t wait to see where life takes us next!

Even though I am old enough and experienced enough to know better, I fell in love with a small badly debilitated mare at a horse leasing facility last March. I was looking for a well-trained stock horse to take on safe trail rides—and lease only for a year. The proprietor had several, he said. After seeing a roundup of jumpy ill-trained beasts, I was about to go home empty-handed when he brought out a bright red mare. My first glimpse of her was straight on and I thought, oh, what a nice face and, gazing down, what clean legs! Then I saw the rest. She was shockingly thin and covered in a layer of matted hair and filth. Her feet were a wreck. She had a big ugly bump on one shoulder. For some reason I stayed while he rode her, and rode her and rode her. She was puffing from exertion and fear by the time I got on. I gave her a cluck and she moved off my leg doing a lovely jog. I took her home.

Within the first full day at my barn, she had her shots and a massage and several opinions free of charge. She sure isn’t pretty, my vet said. If that is a well-bred Quarter Horse, you can keep ’em, my barn owner offered. You took Raggedy Annie, my friend said.

That was almost a year ago. She and I have been down quite a long road in such a short time. Her shoulder needed an operation and she has had two very serious bouts of colic. Her feet are still a problem. And here is the upside. She and I are sympathetic entities. She trusted me from the get go and I trusted her. She is indeed a very good trail horse with a lively curiosity and zero spook. She is also a character. She clacks her teeth at me. She makes a funny chortling sound over molasses muffins. She watches for me every afternoon in her pasture.  She tells me what she wants me to know. She is the highlight of my life. Of course I bought her. And paid too much too. She has been worth every single cent.

After moving to Northern California, I was distraught. I had to leave the love of my life, Hershey, and the new lease I had been so excited about hasn't worked out. So when I found Rhapsody through a craigslist ad, I wasn't expecting much. But this Dutch Warmblood cross Thoroughbred mare, saved as a 3 year old off the slaughter truck, is and will remain, a monumental horse in my life.

When I went to try her, OK, I was impressed. She was a big chestnut mare, with a broad blaze and 3 white socks. She was very friendly, and good to ride. After riding her once more, I started my lease on her.

Rhapsody, who's also known as "Rhap", "Sody", "Rhap-attack", "Rhapsie-whapsie", and sometimes just "MARE", is an easy ride unless you annoy her. If the latter is performed, she'll retaliate by trotting around with her nose in the air and refusing to put it down. She's not forgiving - at all - which really taught me and continues to teach me about how to ride her firmly but not strong. She can haul butt when nessecary and she loves her pony partners-in-crime.

 

We are relocating yet again after summer of 2011, and I'm not sure if my lease on this mare will end or not. Buying her is simply not an option. But she teaches me so much and for that, I'm forever grateful.