A Horse to Remember
Someone asked me if I ever looked for my childhood horse friend among the herd of horses running free here at the Indian horse camp where I live. It's funny that I don't. But these horses are all brown with a few white markings on their foreheads. I think you might call them dark roans, except for one horse. He is several shades of tan and gray and has oversized head and feet. He is an odd looking horse that is bigger and stronger than all the others. He doesn't want me to touch him and I don't.
Our horses back on the farm were unique. My father had an old tractor, but he preferred to till his fields with a three-horse hitch. My horse Star was a 12-year-old dappled gray with silver mane and tail. He had been brought from Nebraska and sold to my father in New Milford, Connecticut. We owned him about four years. Billy, my alternate horse to ride was a pinto and all pintos are different.
When my father sold Star, it was probably the most devastating thing that ever happened to me because that horse provided an imaginary stability in my 12-year old life when all else in my family was a mess. I learned there really is no security and you can lose anything and everything at any time with no ability to stop it. My father sold Star because the horse hated men. He was fine with women and children, but he would kick, bite and generally misbehave as part of a team when men were handling him. Yet he really liked any woman or child. I used to faint a lot as a kid, and once when riding Star I fainted and fell off. I was not hurt, just stunned a little with the breath knocked out of me. Star just stood there absolutely still with his feet and body sheltering me until a neighbor came along and put me back on the horse. I loved that horse and have never seen another who looked anything like him. After 74 years I still choke up and tears come when I think of the day I went out to see my horse before going to school, and found my father loading him into the horse dealer's truck.
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Comments: 22
Gretchen, Yes. Men may have treated him rough back in Nebraska. He may have been 'broken' instead of being gentled and trained from a colt.
Vivian and Chuck, It really was the saddest day of my live. After that I was always ready to face disaster.
Huggs for you and I know he's waiting for you on the other side, to be together forever and to ride into the sunset.....
this is so sad, i can see you standing there watching this.
i feel so bad this happend and had to in this way
I'm very sorry this happened to you Ruth. Of course, since horses live into their twenties and ponies live into their thirties, no doubt every time you think about Star he is right there at your elbow, enjoying the horse camp wilds with you. At least, I like to think so.
I grew up on a farm in New England, and we also had horses. My favorite was, Peanut, whom I first met a few hours after his birth. Peanut and I sort of grew up together, but a day came when my father decided it was time to break Peanut to harness. I was heartbroken to think that my horse (I had claimed him and broken him to saddle) was not going to become a plow horse. My father knew nothing about horses. He believed that a whip was the master tool that would bring the world and everything in it under control, including his children. Peanut died as a result of that incident. I wrote about it the story, First Cutting, which is the lead-off story in my book of short stories (Scattered Leaves, by J.D. Roque). I still get very misty-eyed when I think of that nearly 70-year-old event.
J.R.
J.R.