The Oakley Diaries - 17: He is a Character

   Let's be fair, all horses are characters, if we take the time to get to know them. Everyone who spends lots of time will find amusing quirks and peculiarities and will gather a collection of anecdotes. This horse is okay on the road until he sees a painted bicycle symbol. That one doesn't like potted plants. This one loves dogs, that one hates 'em.

   Oakley has, naturally, a few quirks of his own. He is "the best-behaved horse in the barn" because he never pushes, never tries to bolt and leads calmly and softly, going out to pasture in the morning and coming back in to his stall in the evening. A couple of weeks back, F. slipped on the ice and Oakley apparently just stopped short and then stood their, patiently waiting until he got up. None of the other horses would do that, they'd push past and run off, but not Oakley. We shall have to work on the help-like-Lassie part, but for now, just standing patiently while someone gets up and not stepping on them as they lie there, even if it's dinner time, will do just fine, thank you.

   Oakley won't leave his paddock. His previous owner talked about him jumping over fences & teasing the other horses, but I've never seen him even try to leave, not once all these last two summers. Other horses jump in & visit with him, occasionally breaking the top rail, leaving just the bottom rail, which is about a high as a trot-pole that he could easily step over, but he doesn't leave the paddock, not even after he's hoovered up every strand of hay within reach and is staring intently at the round-bale, as if he were trying to get it to move using psychic power. Except a couple of weeks ago, someone left the gate unlatched and slightly open when they put him in. I know he didn't step over the rail because of the fresh snow: it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to take one look at the tracks and realize he took the slightly open and unlatched gate as permission to go out & wander about. He won't step over the nominal fence, but a slightly open gate... well, out we go!

   The funny thing is, he already knows how to open the gate himself. Three people -- so far -- have confirmed that most days, when it's time to go in, and they start leading the horses in from the paddocks to the barn, he'll reach over, unlatch the chain, which I find I have to fiddle with, pull the gate towards himself, because it opens into the paddock, and then stand in the gate and impatiently make noise and stamp his feet until someone comes to collect him... but he won't actually leave the paddock.

   He's a character, all right. He's my character.

Addendum: my little frisson of pride for the month.

   Yesterday, I found that a new boarder, L., is someone I already know, because she and her daughter used to ride at my friend's school, just up the road, where I frequently take Oakley. She said it was an interesting co-incidence meeting me because her daughter and she had just last week been talking about me how I used to ride my horse all last summer up that road and how calm and well-behaved he was.

   Then she asked whatever happened to the other horse I had, the one that I used to bring there in my trailer, the one that was really flighty and hard to ride?

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