My Lady

My old girl Lady, she lived to be 41. I still miss her after 3 years.What a time we had together. I started to ride after I turned 40 and soon after I began to take lessons the guy who was running the stable lost his business. He sold all the lesson horses and I bought Lady and a 1/2 interest in Spyder. My friend Mary already had a horse named Captain. The new people used our horses for lessons and so we got a little break on the board. The three of them were in what they called Tie stalls where basically they were just hooked by the halter to a link on the crib that held their food. Only problem was Lady figured out how to unhook herself and spend the night snacking up in the hay. Eventually they had to go into stalls and it was not long before she learned to let herself out. That shows how coniving she was. Remember I was just learning to ride at this point and this horse had a sense of humour. A child could ride her and she was on her best behaviour. When I got on it was fun time for Lady. Not that there was a mean bone in her body, she just clearly liked to fool with me. An example would be when we tried to learn to jump. She would trot up to the jump with me in position all nice and steady and then she would just STOP and eat grass. While I hovered there like an idiot in jump position. Captain would do the same to mary but she had been known to slither off down his neck and plop off the other side of the jump, I know that was what Lady was aiming for but I had better balance.
Not so with the canter. I got the seated trot down pat and was very comfortable with that but I never did like the canter. So she knew this and would start off along the long wall in perfect canter, I would just get comfortable when the corner would loom up and sure as sugar she would turn and run into the middle of the arena leaving me all discabolalated and unbalanced. She never did this to anyone else and I had not changed my queue or anything. On a different level she took care of me. We were out on a trail one winter and got stuck on ice. I gave up the reigns and she got us off of the ice all slipping and sliding while I sat quiet and let her take care of things. Another time again on ice in the field I went in with carrots, so stupid in retrospect but it was something we always did. Well several horses came over and were pushing and shoving and knocked me over. Lady stood over me until they moved off kicking and biting each other. I could have been hurt. All I got was manure in my eye and lost my eyelashes by being rubbed off on the ice.
We had some great times Lady and me and she eventually retired and lived a life of luxury at a friends home. Her and two pasture mates had two fields to play in and full of grass. She had the best food and the best care and not a days illness in her life. She was fat in her middle years. So much so people thought she was pregnant but oh well...........food was her thing. She taught a lot of kids to ride and she was petted and brushed by my kids and grandkids. They learned to love horses and she is very much missed.