My continued inspiration…

For the last 5 or 6 years, I have had a continuing inspiration in my life. He has fought off illness, nearly died, continued health problems and weight issues, and though he continues to be quite thin, he is still fighting. He can’t stand to not be working, but is always happy to show another who is doing his job the correct way to do it. And he always, always, does all of this with more grace than any human I have ever seen.

Flash back to half a decade ago. I’m looking for my first horse, and I was looking to show as a hunter/jumper at the time. After a few weeks of searching, my mom comes upon an ad for a 14 or 15 year old ex hunter/jumper and racehorse named Beau who is being sold by a farrier. From the way he sounded, I knew he was perfect and I bugged her for a couple weeks to let me go look. Finally she relented and we took the hour trip out to the middle of nowhere to look at this guy.

When we arrived, I looked out into the herd for a chestnut gelding, but all I saw were spectacularly bred quarter horses, amazingly muscled and perfectly shaped for barrel racing and roping. The farrier pointed out to me a thin, beat up horse who was being chased and bitten by a huge palomino mare. This horse obviously needed some serious work done on him. He had fungus on his legs from swimming in their pond, his entire body was covered in scars from the times he had been bitten or kicked, he was losing hair from being so stressed, and he was easily 200lbs under weight. No matter how many times I asked his owners not to, they insisted on taking him over a few short jumps for me (I honestly didn’t think he was rideable in his condition). The second he saw an english saddle being pulled out of the barn, he came cantering up and turned so they could put it on him. He lowered his head for the bridle, which was WAY too big, and stood quiet while the girl mounted him and rode him down to the ring. He seemed like he was 3 years old again, his head held high and prancing like the gorgeous Anglo-arab he is.

I watched as this older, thin, sick horse performed better than a jumping champion. He looked as if he’d never been happier in his life. He went over jumps, fences, and to my amazement sailed clear over a smaller horse. His owner had bought him from a girl who had decided that she would rather have a car than a horse about 2 and a half years prior to that. He hadn’t been ridden once since two weeks before they bought him.

Over time, I’ve come to respect this horse who I lovingly call Old Man far more than any human I’ve come into contact with or heard of. He is extremely nervous, terrified of everything, but quickly recovers and acts as if it’s nothing. He has choked and nearly died twice, losing about 50lbs every time and never gaining it back. He constantly has skin problems and ear problems. We feed him about three times as much as every other horse on the farm and he still will not gain weight.

I am posting this now because of something that happened yesterday. I was tacking up Maverick to ride, and Beau was hovering around asking to be ridden (which he can’t be). When I took Mav into the upper field and started slowly walking up and down the fence to warm him up, Beau mirrored our actions across the fence. As we did circles, practiced opening and closing gates, etc, he mirrored everything we did without a rider and perfectly. But what amazed me was that as Mav was performing these actions, he was watching Beau. As time went on, he started mimicking him and seemed to be learning from the older, wiser horse.

When I went into a canter, Beau followed suit. After about four rounds, Beau stopped dead and started coughing, having overworked himself. He had been carrying his head high, prancing like the horse he is, and in one moment of quick defeat he acted his age. But he recovered, slowing to a walk and coming up to where Mav and I had stopped. He looked at Mav, looked at me, then gave a nod and a snort as his permission to carry on without him. For the rest of the time he stood in that exact spot and snorted whenever we did something wrong, which caused us to quickly correct.

He does this with everyone. He is the mentor of the farm and the teacher above all other horses. I am very lucky to have him to teach me and the rest, and I am so glad he chose me. He is my continued inspiration, and I think he would want me to share this with you. Thanks old man.