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Finding Tikha: Search for a Horse - Part 5
Val
Hampson,MA
Fifth
in a series on a midlife woman’s journey to find her first horse.
My search continued for a horse, this time out of state. The stunning
tobiano paint gelding called to me from over 200 miles away. The miles
clicked quickly as I drove to
Oregon,
passing through the waterfalls and solid greenery of Columbia Gorge into
the rolling beige high desert.
The directions were too difficult, the owner said, so I agreed to meet
her at my hotel. A stiff, angry woman stomped towards me in the lobby.
After a terse greeting, we got in our cars and I worked hard to follow
her speedy, careening drive off into the hills, wondering what I’d
gotten into now.
....
We pulled into a mud encrusted area with a
ramshackle “stable” listing at a depressing angle. Horses milled about
the paddocks. A tiny child spilled out of the woman’s Suburban and
dragged me over to the stable. A flannel shirted guy got out with the
woman. He was the silent type; I don’t know about strong. The woman
slammed around the paddocks like a wrathful tornado, barely
acknowledging my presence. Apparently, it was time to feed.
“You’re so fat! All you do is eat, eat, eat! Look at you, fatties!” The
woman shrieked in a hateful tone at the horses as she slammed flakes of
hay at them. She kept this up for several minutes. The only horse that
looked significantly overweight to me was the one I’d come to see. He,
it turned out, had not been ridden in 18 months.
The tornado woman whirled out into the pasture to catch Flash, not an
easy task. Gee, I wonder why? She finally grabbed and muscled him into a
small nearby paddock. Flash looked very nervous. He was indeed a
gorgeous horse with a very big, beautiful soul.
The owner turned her attention next to their stallion, prancing in the
next paddock. She thought perhaps one of the mares was coming into heat.
Should they put the mare next to him, she asked the husband. In a voice
soft as one stolen by the gales, he said maybe not today. I was
grateful, the hot stallion had ratcheted up Flash’s anxiety and he was
nervously pacing with head high and eyes big. And I was thinking I was
here to ride him.
I
decided to derail the whirlwind and get us back on task. There was a
small dilapidated round pen on the other side of the stable, away from
the stallion. "Why don’t we take him into the round pen?", I suggested.
At
the round pen, the owner wanted me to mount on up. "No", I said, "I want
to work on the ground a little bit."
Flash did well in the round pen, joining up and following me nicely,
although he was still tense and anxious. I told her I wanted her to ride
him first to warm him up, especially since he hadn’t been ridden in so
long.
She grabbed a whip and launched herself on his back. Flash’s nostrils
flared and his head went up higher still. He was scared. She gave a
sharp slap with the whip and a deep kick and Flash stepped forward.
Slowly they went round with Flash stiff and wary. She cued him to a turn
with the whip and boot, but he started scuttling sideways like a crab.
She screamed and raged at him, waling on him hard until he finally
obeyed. They lurched on. The woman decided she wanted more speed.
I
don’t know why Flash was a little slow. Maybe it was because he hadn’t
been ridden in so long, maybe he was on the slow side or too fearful or
rebelling against her, or perhaps the pen was too small. Anyway, Flash
was not going fast enough for her. Like a category 5 storm, she yelled
and screamed and kicked and whipped. Flash tried to come over to me.
This only intensified the owner’s frenzied determination to control him.
Flash started to crow hop. The woman escalated her rage.
It
was all making me nauseous. I cannot bear animal mistreatment. I suspect
some folks believe this is how you ride and control a horse, so I doubt
any agency of authority would think it worthy of intervention or even
untoward. It didn’t look like she was inflicting any permanent physical
injury. But I could not bear it. The physical pain and the wound to the
heart and spirit of a horse makes my blood boil and can bring tears to
my eyes and heart. I knew, though, that I did not have the horsemanship
or training skills to take on a “project” horse. Also, having rescued
many animals over the years, the realities of the long term commitment
of keeping a rescued animal are not far from my mind.
I
raised my voice above hers and told her I would not be riding or buying
Flash and she could stop. She turned her rage on me, spitting out that I
was not good enough for her horse.
I
said good bye and backed away, hoping she would calm down and leave
Flash alone. As I drove down the rutted driveway, she was still on Flash
in a twisted maelstrom.
If
I had been an experienced horse trainer with some extra cash and a horse
trailer in tow, I would have rescued him. I’d have bought him and loaded
him up then and there. Even though, no doubt, he would have a lot of
issues and healing to work through. Under his fear, I could see the soul
of a sweet, curious and joyful horse.
Val Hampson, MA,
is EAGALA certified and a writer, horsewoman, educator, energy and qigong practitioner, psychotherapist,
and editor of Equus Spirit. Contact her at
valh@equusspirit.com
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