O’Grady is our newest addition to the herd; he’s been with us for over a year now and is one of the sweetest horses we’ve ever met. Grady stands at least eighteen hands, also making him the largest horse we’ve ever had. His personality reminds me of the new kid in school, a bit awkward and shy, on the playground with no real friends. He wants desperately to fit in, so he’s always looking for an accomplice to get into some trouble with him. Blue is his stablemate on one side and Donnie resides on the other. We put them in these stalls in hopes they would bond.
Because I have nothing else to do, here are my observations from the other side of the fence monitoring this interchange between Blue and Grady:
Grady: “Hi Blue, whatcha doing today?”
Blue: “Nothing that would interest you.”
Grady: “Want to play or groom or something?”
Blue: “No.”
Grady: “Blue, you’re like the coolest horse in the whole barn.”
Blue: “I know.”
Grady: “Want to be friends?”
Blue: “Uh, no.”
Grady: “Aw, come on Blue, nobody else will be my friend.”
Blue: “How’s that my problem?”
Grady: “Want to see me roll in the mud again? I can get super dirty!” Blue: “Good for you.”
Grady: “How about we go check out the back field?”
Blue: “No, that’s a long walk for no reason; there’s no grass back there yet.”
Grady: “I’m bored.”
Blue: “Yeah, I’m starting to know how you feel. Why don’t you go play with that little brown pest.”
Grady: “He’s not my friend. He’s always biting me and it hurts.”
Blue: “You’re a big guy, stand up for yourself.”
Grady: “I can’t, I don’t want him to be mad at me. No one else will play with me!”
Blue: “I can’t imagine why not….”
Grady: “I’ll give you my lunch hay….”
Blue: “Hmm, now you’re speaking my language. What did you say your name was again?”
Grady: “It’s Grady, can we play now?"
Blue: (Sigh). “Maybe after lunch we can do a little thing I like to call ‘halter tag."
Grady: “Yay, I just got a new halter! Sounds like fun!!!”
" Blue "
Until next time
Quote for Today
Be wary of the horse with a sense of humour. - Pam Brown
( These are pictures taken in previous training sessions in outside arena)
" Donnie"
Our day started out with the usual feed and turnouts, then whichever horses were being worked were readied for their lessons. We have been acclimating some of the more ‘special needs’ horses to the indoor by hand walking and lunging them a few times before they are ridden inside. Donnie had the number one slot on the dance card today. He’s still a little nervous about indoors since a German Shepherd attacked him in an indoor a few years ago (which also resulted in his first “girthy” bucking incident.) As a result, he doesn’t care much for dogs or indoors, so making him feel secure in the indoor is a priority before eventually mounting up.
It was raining, but the noise was less than I thought it would be on the metal roof and we were pleasantly surprised that Donnie was doing so well. My daughter was lunging him and I was sitting on the mounting block. Out of nowhere I noticed Grady and Blue, two of our nosier horses who had the day off because they were ridden yesterday; their two heads were perfectly framed side by side in the window as they watched Donnie work. Grady called out to Donnie: “Whatcha doin’ Donnie, wanna come out and play?” Donnie nickered to them, “I’m almost done here fellas, just let me finish this circle - be out in a minute.” Of all the times not to have a camera... not that I could have taken a great picture anyway, I was laughing pretty hard.
"Sami"
Next up was Sami; he did very well even if he was a little nervous. The resident pigeons flew in out the windows a few times distracting him, but he’s surprisingly sensible and all in all he had a good lesson.
"Nate"
Dusty is still on the disabled list. I took her for a walk in the indoor yesterday and did a quick assessing lunge. She’s still a tad off on the outside of the circle. In the past Dusty has been ridden in an indoor only a handful of times, so she’s skeptical and very alert to say the least. I’ve been trying to familiarize her by hand walking and feeding treats so she thinks indoors are fun – kind of like going into a giant walk-in treat dispenser. Her main squeeze, Nate, was along for his orientation and to keep her company. They have been missing each other so we thought some quality time together would be nice for both of them.
We have 4ft. doors that complete the wall on the lower half of the arena that can be placed over the large opening on the end, but since this is where we come in with vehicles, etc. we’ve been leaving it open. I also thought it might be nice psychologically for nervous horses to leave it open so they wouldn’t feel too claustrophobic while getting used to being inside; this way they’d always feel like they had an escape route. But we thought it might be nice for Dusty and Nate to explore on their own, so we decided to block the openings and turn them loose. After putting a board across the smaller man-door entrance and stringing a thick, white lunge line across the huge doorway at the end, we let them loose to play with each other. Some trotting side by side and head tossing ensued and they were having fun cavorting and snorting. At this point Nate decided a nice canter was in order and made a beeline from one end of the arena towards the front entrance where we were watching their antics. We were standing in front of the lunge line to reinforce the boundary a bit when Nate came bounding toward us. Sure he would spin out at the last minute, my daughter and I simultaneously raised our arms to turn him and moved to either side of the entrance to avoid the big last minute turn and possible buck we were expecting from him.
But this is Nate we’re dealing with here. He never does what you’d expect a normal horse to do. Instead, he kept right on going and we became the human standards for what has now been dubbed “the lunge jump.” That’s right, all 17’2 hands of goofy Dutch Warmblood jumped over the lunge line, knees snapped up by his ears, in an amazingly effortless jump and proceeded to take a galloping tour around the outside of the arena. The top of the wall where the lunge was attached is 4ft, and the jump took him onto a bluestone road for a stride then up a steep bank to the top of the hill. He never missed a beat.
Color us surprised! Nate has been semi-retired and hasn’t jumped for about 5 years now - and fully retired for the last 6 months - because he has so many mysterious health issues my daughter didn’t want to add stress by working him. She’s now rethinking this decision after his dazzling jumping display. This isn’t the first time we’ve caught him in the act of jumping random things for his own entertainment, even in his retirement. So who knows, maybe he’s bored and a little work might do him some good. If he can happily canter the length of the indoor, casually step over a 4’ longe line and canter up a near vertical bank in one stride, maybe he can manage a little walking around the field under tack...?
"Dusty"
Dusty, the more sensible of the two, followed him up to a point, and then she stopped, ears forward looking out the doors and windows. Finally, I think she actually shrugged her shoulders: “Stupid boys; they sure know how to ruin a good time.”
Until next time
Quote for Today A stubborn horse walks behind you, an impatient horse walks in front of you, but a noble companion walks beside you.
It occurred to me recently that my horses have absolutely no natural instinct for self-preservation. I’m wondering what everyone else thinks about their horse’s personalities and whether or not their horses could survive if turned out in the wild.
The reason why this particular subject came to mind: I was about to drag the arena in the back field a few days ago, when I got out of the Kubota to open the gate, in the blink of an eye Nate had walked onto our chain harrow (luckily the tines were pointed down) and had to have all four hooves extricated; While extricating Nate and shooing him away, Grady thought the whole thing looked like a good idea and wedged both his front feet in the drag as well; Blue was standing in front of the hood staring me down and wouldn’t move even though I blew the horn at him; Donnie was checking out the bed in the back and had found an old halter and a rusty horseshoe with nails we had just picked up in the paddock to play with. I swear it’s like living with a bunch of five year olds.
As I thought back over the years, many more instances of recklessness or downright stupidity came to mind, these are by no means all of their antics just a few of my favorites:
There was the time when Blue and Erik took a run across the half frozen pond on the way in from turnout. Hence, the fencing around the pond.
When Lifeguard picked the lock on the gate and led the entire herd on a merry gallop across the road through the neighbor’s sod farm, and tore it up. Although he's no longer with us he still has the ability to conjure up fond memories.
When we live on Long Island, my daughter used to take the horses on a short walk to Long Island Sound. Her friend one day came along and ponied her young OTTB Squiggy to the beach for the first time. Although he had never seen so much as a big puddle, he got loose and ran off, making a bee-line straight into the oncoming waves of the Sound and kept on going until he fell off a ledge some distance out and disappeared under the water entirely, only to emerge a while later, shaken and disoriented. But that didn’t stop him - he kept swimming out for a while until they rode further up the beach to lure him back. He eventually turned around and got himself out of the water, only to gallop past the other horses up the beach and off into the distance.
Down by the Sound again, Erik spooked and dove into a swamp - presumably for cover? - got stuck and dumped my daughter in the reeds and mud. Luckily she didn’t let go of the reins and he dragged her for quite a ways, running next to him before she could stop him. Where did he think he was going? Or was he trying to outrun the horrifying “Swamp Thing” running beside him?
Blue one day got loose and, of all the places he could have wandered, we found him standing happily in the dumpster atop a mountain of manure surveying his kingdom.
Nate’s done so many off-the-wall things it’s hard to list them all , but my favorite would definitely have to be the time in Scotland when my daughter was taking a hotel group trail ride out. Nate saw giant red cows with horns and, fleeing for his life, forgot to look behind him and backed up so quickly he ran into a bank and fell over backwards.
Nate is the main reason why any improvement we do on the farm starts with the question, “how could Nate hurt himself with this and how can it be prevented”? Although, despite our best efforts, we’re convinced he could even hurt himself in a padded stall.... So I guess that our domesticated horses probably couldn’t take care of themselves if released into the wild and left to their own devices. How about yours?
Until next time
Quote for Today
Leave a horse's gate unfastened and he'll be knocking on your window in the night.
This is how today is going so far. Morning turnout wasn’t its usually smooth get-the-horses-fed-and-out routine; instead, we had a slight incident (although nothing too unsafe happened.) Grady had his halter and lead rope on as I went to put on Sami’s. Usually, all the horses stand and wait for their turn so, as I was haltering Sami I threw the rope over Grady’s neck and he decided to check out Mellon’s empty stall, so I let him wander in. For a big horse, he’s quicker than you would think. He decided to amble down the aisle and out the door before I could grab him. Of course, the lead rope slipped from his neck and he was now taking baby steps because he would step on the lead every few steps and stop himself. He made it half way down the driveway before I could catch him. Not a big incident but, note to self: I have to remember Grady hasn’t been here long enough to know the stop and wait rule.
As I was sitting down to my lunch salad I forgot my water so, as I was at the sink filling a glass, I caught a brown and white flash go by. On further inspection, I realized it was Blue. He was loose again! Thundering right behind him were the rest of the herd. Blue was leading the charge on the grand tour around the barn, through the trees and across the driveway. Great. Got my coat and shoes on and was mightily impressed that on another turn around the barn with tails flying Blue jumped a pile of construction materials on the lawn, and looked pretty good doing it! Grady stepped on it with his back feet, Dusty went around, Nate looked athletic and impressive etc. I’d have to head them off at the pass as they rounded the barn again.
Usually when this happens they get bored running in the same space and head further afield down by the garage and dumpster. If that happened it would be a long day catching them. Blue came to a skidding stop when he rounded the corner and saw me, I called him and he walked over. Luckily the gate to the paddock was near and he was ushered in. His expression registered unbelief that I would lock him back in but, what did he think, he was in for a treat? Next came Nate and then Grady. All the horses were sweaty and blowing hard. Mellon came next and Dusty was trying to slip into the barn unnoticed when I surprised her by grabbing her halter too. Guess she thought she was invisible. That’s almost all of them, now I just had to catch Donnie. He’s a little more difficult because he has no halter today - he lent it to Grady because Sami broke his. Sami has been being an unconscionable little brat lately. He’s banished to the small paddock with Sweetie where one of her ‘mom’ looks sends him scurrying for cover, and he needs that right now, but that’s a story for another day....
Donnie now has a lead rope around his neck and we’re heading for the paddock. This is the moment that Grady decides his head is way too itchy and he must rub it on the fence. Of course, in the miles of fencing available for scratching, he chooses the 1-foot section right next to the gate where the halter rack hangs. So, in the course of scratching, his halter catches on one of the hooks that hold the rack over the fence. He pulls back, hooks his halter by the noseband, and takes the rack with him, including all the lead ropes now hanging off it. He’s now standing in the middle of the paddock swinging it back and forth with 7 leather leads on it doing his best impersonation of Medusa and scattering all the horses. Enter Donnie and me; I unhook it and another disaster is averted.
Blue is our professional escape artist, and a budding locksmith. He somehow worked the latch on the gate, which sometimes doesn’t close fully in the winter cold, so we usually tie it. It’s my fault for the escape because I forgot to tie it with the lead rope this morning.
Still for today’s escapades I’ve got to score 1 for Blue on the "Are You Kidding Me" scoreboard and Grady gets an honorable mention.
I admit this may not be my most brilliant moment in equine management, but am I crazy for finding this adventure funny or have I just been hanging around horses too much?
Until next time
Quote for Today
How do you catch a loose horse?
Make a noise like a carrot. - British Cavalry joke
