Post by scattymare on Oct 6, 2006 17:01:13 GMT 1
LOTHARIO
IN HIS OWN WORDS.
I am now enjoying my life in semi retirement; the person who cares for me has been my friend for over 12 years now. I first met her on the national hunt yard where I was to spend about 4 years of my life. But I will start when I was born, as this seems a very good place to start.
I was born to a mare called Fairy Footsteps back in 1985, 23rd April to be precise (gosh is it really that long ago?) Someone told me that she won the 1,000 guineas in 1981. Her Daddy was the late great Mill Reef; even I have seen his statue! My daddy was a one-morning stand back in 1984. His name was Hello Gorgeous. With parents with names like these…. I had very little chance of being named with anything but a really fancy name did I? (More about pedigree and race records etc later on). Life as a foal was very easy. Go out, eat grass, drink milk, and snuggle up to mummy, then go in and more of the same. Who could ask for a better time of it? Then abruptly in the autumn of 1985 mummy went away. I never saw her again. I now know through meeting foals since then, that this is how things are done all over the place. I try and take them under my wing and look after them whilst keeping them in line. Anyway, back to my story.
After mummy had gone away I was taken to a farm where they groomed me every day and started taking me for walks. I had a nasty tasting metal thing put into my mouth. I have later learnt that it is only nasty when certain people do things with it. It was fun going out with the other boys for a walk. We started getting really handsome. Life was a ball; we asked for nothing and got lots in return. Then the day came when we started being made to do more than walk. The people were no longer by our sides but they stood in the middle and flicked stinging strings at us, whilst we were attached to them by a long white lead. Hmmm If life is to be like this forever more, I am not sure I want any part of it. We started doing all sorts of things on this white lead, walking, stopping, whizzing round at 900 miles an hour, standing up on our hind legs boxing and generally having fun. This wasn’t so bad. Then the time came to have some crazy little monster slung up on my back. Hadn’t even noticed them until the commands for speed and slowing were coming from a different place. I was 18 months old at this time. Life was about to turn upside down.
I took being ridden in my stride, I think the people were quite impressed at how quiet I was, after all I was still a colt! I enjoyed the wanders to the grass, and the run on the grass. Pity I couldn’t eat it but I guess having a run was just as much fun. In the Late summer I had a man come to look at me. He was very official looking and carried a large notepad and wore a brown felt hat. He watched me being walked round the paddock, Then I had to be trotted up on some nasty slippery stuff that made my shoes go clip clop clip clop. Then he went away. I was to meet him again fairly soon.
I was rudely awakened at about 4.30am, although I am an early riser anyway. My new person threw some tack on me and I remember this chap stood on the grass saying:” take this one steady Mac, it’s his first time, lets just let him get a feel for it.” I was in amongst some slightly older horses who seemed to know what they were going to do. They seemed quite excited about something, but couldn’t get out of any of them exactly what it was they were jigging about. Some horses are so highly strung it is unbelievable. Anyway, we walked down this strip of sandy stuff, got to one end, turned and got a dig in the ribs. Didn’t know quite what I had to do so I just followed the rest of them, I have to say, it was quite good fun. Not entirely sure what was more fun, tanking off with a little person or making them work hard for their breakfast! I could do either depending on my mood and how early they’d come to get me. I was told by one of the other horses that I was soon to go for a proper trial. Whatever this was I guessed it would be fun. Nothing could have come further from the truth.
Having a HUGE amount of speed and stamina in my lineage, people expected me to be some sort of fantastic racehorse. I’d show them. Racing was absolutely boring, dull, monotonous, why should I try my heart out to get sweaty and be shouted at and slapped with big sweaty hands afterwards. So the two races I ran when I was 3 years old were absolute flops. I think I was third in one and a long way behind in the second. I might even have run a third race but my memory fails me at this moment in time. So, it was time for another trip on a lorry to a not so prestigious place as before to be sold.
A big man bought me he had some hair above his top lip. I was 4 years old now and as I had a hopeless race record I was not worth an awful lot. This suited me, an easy life, and no hassles…. How wrong could I have been again? The big man with a moustache turned out to be a National Hunt racehorse trainer. I must say that this idea is slightly more appealing to me than just running flat out for a few furlongs. I went straight into training on my arrival at the yard. I think his stable jockey was very scared of me, he was very cautious about coming into my room. He used to grab my headcollar as he came in. I only wanted a little taste of his flesh. I had discovered that by biting people, I could get them to behave (well at least run out of my room in pain) I am guessing this is how some people treat their animals into doing what they want. It is quite effective but they tend to get crabby with you and life is a pain in the butt when people are crabby.)
I started by going over smaller fences than my new friends at this yard did. The fences I was jumping, I later learned were called hurdles. They were very easy to jump, sort of took them in my stride really. It was about this time I met the person I was to spend the rest of my life with. I think the fears of the jockey handling me spread round the yard and got back to the guy with the moustache. I had a visit from a vet and felt a couple of pounds lighter. Not to mention the fact that I felt really woozy and a little disorientated. They thought that when they took away the hormone producers I would be nicer to them…how wrong could they have been. I was even nastier than before. I was always of the opinion that when I had my kit on, I was an absolute gentleman. But as soon as it came off...watch out people. I raced twice over hurdles. I damaged one of my legs in the second race and had to have some horrific treatment called pin firing. Hurt like hell at first, but when the swelling went down, I just guessed I was lucky to still be alive. Then I went over the bigger fences that my friends were running over...these were scary! Great big solid fences, one mistake at those and I’d be in real trouble. Had to learn to help myself when running full tilt into these fences
I didn’t like these big fences, in my first race over them I met a few famous to be faces. The guy who won my race even won the Grand National…. So I was in some pretty good company. I was sitting nicely at the back of the field, felt rather fat and unfit actually so it was where I was going to stay regardless of what him upstairs had to say about the matter. He made me muck up the striding into fence nine, until then I was puffing along nicely, then when he bodged the striding into fence ten, I hit it hard, he went sailing over in front of me and I stood looking at him laughing. Didn’t even bother to follow on. It seemed too much like hard work. Silly chap should have done what the Old Irishman did, just sat there, at least I finished the race if it was left up to me. I wasn’t used to people making the decisions for me. I went into one more race that winter, it was to be my last. I got about half way round and felt something in my leg give way, I knew the feeling, and I’d had it before. I was pulled up this time before too much damage was done. I went straight from the track to the vet’s surgery. He repaired some of the damage with carbon fibre implants, which are still there to this day. It was whilst I was recovering from this injury that my friend bought me. I was in a very sorry state, 6 months out in a field, having been a fit and well loved chap, I was stuck into a barn with enough feed and hay to keep me going but no one bothered to come and brush me. Except of course my friend, but she was away somewhere, so even she didn’t come and see me very often.
I stayed at the racing yard for a while; I was used as an escort for the loony racehorses that needed a calming influences. When these racehorses became broodmares, I was no longer needed at this yard, so my friend moved me to a small place next door. There were two tiny ponies here and a slightly bigger one. I enjoyed my time here with these little fellas but it was not what I needed, there was no warm stable to go into when it was cold and wet, I struggled to find enough grass to eat and it was a long way from where my friend lived. So 3 months later I moved again. I moved to a very nice place, just outside the village my friend lived in. I lived in a barn, next to a cob mare, she was a madam. She’d kick out at me the first opportunity she could, but if she knew she couldn’t get near you she’d flirt outrageously. There were also two tiny little ponies here and a smaller cob gelding. I used to go for rides with the two cobs, I enjoyed going out with my friend here, and we used to go out for hours. The cobs however were slow coaches. Every few strides I had to wait for them to catch up. It was only a few times we went out with them before my friend and I got cheesed off with the hanging round. So we went back to wandering about on our own. There were very few routes we didn’t explore. If we went back I am sure that we’d find some of them again.
My friend and I moved down to Dorset after two years together. We loaded all our stuff onto a lorry that smelt decidedly of pigs, hmmm wondering what quite went into this lorry. But we travelled down to Dorset; here I met a lot of new friends. There was an ageing show cob; we got on like a house on fire. I was the only gelding he’d ever got on with apparently. Must have been some sort of personality gelling thing. Two grumpy old men together. Because the lorry went to shows every week, sometimes twice a week, I was often stuffed on the wagon and taken along for the odd jumping class. Although I didn’t really do any good at this, I found it hard work making turns and jumping fences all in the confines of a small ring. I had one or two good rounds, even managed to only knock one down at Ellingham and Ringwood show. In the early autumn, I was reaching over the fence for some better grass, as you do, when I stepped back, I had something hard, heavy and not very nice attached to my leg. I panicked. Took this, whatever it was, across the field a little way and it came off. I have a heck of a pain in my pastern and hock areas. My friend was not in at the time but her boss came running out at the noise. I was patched up and ordered to stay in my stable for a week whilst the wound closed. I had got stuck in a gate. It had been tied onto the fence to provide a feeder for the sheep. When I had leant over and pushed it forwards the string was weak so that when it dropped back into place the string snapped. Hey presto…I had yet another scar to add to my collection. I wasn’t off work for long. I started working slowly about 3 weeks after the accident. But I hadn’t really lost a lot of my fitness. We decided to take things at a bit faster pace and went hunting in November. It was good fun. I was often used to help round up those mad dogs that run off barking like mad after something I rarely saw. Have since learnt from my show cob friend that it was a fox we were following. I enjoyed this kind of jumping, made me look great, especially when the man in the red coat couldn’t get over a fence and I had to show him how it was done. In the January of 1994, I was entered into a team chase. This was great fun. None of the boys in the team had ever done anything like this before, although I thought it was very much like racing without the entire hubbub. We did very well in it. Coming 7th out of 40 in the novice section, but the fences were quite big and the course quite long and challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed it! We had quite a tense moment whilst waiting to go. There had been an accident. Apparently one of my friends from the yard (her team had gone 2 teams before us) had run into a fence post (It had barbed wire wrapped round it from where they’d opened up part of the fencing) She arrived back with her chest covered in scratches, poor little lass. But I guess she recovered enough. Very traumatic for her. We were flying then, we had to all jump the fourth fence together and my friend and the others had decided to take a longer route at one of the other fences, although I think we could have gone for the faster route. We had to jump quite a lot of big fences of all descriptions and we went through a small river three times. When we got to the end I wanted to go round again. Our timing was almost spot on and we got lots of fuss and praise from our friends. I would highly recommend that any of you out there with a passion for jumping and galloping give it a go. Then the showing season was coming upon us again and my cross-country took a back seat. I was still ridden every day and went to the odd show with my friend. In the late spring it was decided that I go back to my friends sister in Essex. I wasn’t getting enough work as my friend was busy with the showing and her sister had a lame horse that couldn’t be ridden, but she had the time to ride. So the swap was made. Jazz came down and went into the field and I went back to Essex to be ridden. When I was back in Essex, I went out with the bloodhounds. Funny looking critters. Made hounds that follow foxes look positively beautiful. But we had some enjoyable days jumping cross-country fences in Friday Woods, and riding along the edge of the beach. All in the name of fun. Life was a lot less hectic up in Essex. There wasn’t the constant buzz of the professional yards I had been on and it was so much less stressful. So I just chilled out and enjoyed the peace and quiet.
A year or so went by with me just going out for walks and doing the odd bit of bloodhound hunting. Then my friend came along and took me to another professional yard. Although I was on an associate yard so it wasn’t quite as busy as the main one. These horses were mainly showjumpers. There were a few broodmares that I shared my accommodation with. Some of the wounds I saw on these poor creatures were horrendous. All in the name of sport. I think if a horse wants to jump, it will. If it doesn’t then there is no point “doing things” to it to try and improve it. I used to hack round to the school once a week for a play in the sand school. Even got taken to an UK chasers course once as a lead horse for a grade A showjumper. He really didn’t like those cross-country fences. I showed him how to do it though. I only stayed here for 6 months, and then I went back to the quiet yard with the cobs again. My friend would come and see me occasionally, but it was mainly her sister that looked after me. I was taken on trial to a hunt kennels. They kept me a week before they decided they couldn’t ride me and I, apparently, kept kicking hounds, so I was back.
My friend decided I needed to be doing something with my life, so someone from a college came to try me out. I went with them back to the college yard. I had a fairly good time of it there for a while. Then I decided to start tasting the students. Got to give the little blighters something to think about. So the woman who ran the yard decided to stick a leather thing round my chops…. No more biting. I was getting progressively grumpier. So they decided, in their wisdom, to put me to work in the school. That was their biggest mistake to date. After all I am an ex-racehorse, and I have never been worked in such a small enclosure. Seemed I’d have to show them I wasn’t very happy. I would stick my tongue out and wave my head around, buck a lot and generally have fun with whoever was riding me. I didn’t like this work and I think they thought they’d beat me in this tiny space. I showed a specific hate of turning the corners, so they started sticking a whip up my nose…not much fun but I guess I’d have to start behaving if this was how they were gonna treat someone who didn’t know what they were asking of them. I think they thought this was the way to “teach” me. I hated all the kids getting on me one after another. They would smack me in the teeth and I could tell they hated riding me. But the “torture” never stopped. Then came the end of term. My friend had always kept my front shoes on even if my back ones got taken off and she’d expressed the wish that this was to be so for me here if I got turned out. However, these people decided they knew best. Off came all my shoes. That hurt a lot, I felt like I was walking on glass shards. I hobbled round for a couple of days when these people decided it would be best if I had my shoes completely replaced. Bliss. It was only a short time before I was loaded up onto another wagon and headed off to the Northwest.
IN HIS OWN WORDS.
I am now enjoying my life in semi retirement; the person who cares for me has been my friend for over 12 years now. I first met her on the national hunt yard where I was to spend about 4 years of my life. But I will start when I was born, as this seems a very good place to start.
I was born to a mare called Fairy Footsteps back in 1985, 23rd April to be precise (gosh is it really that long ago?) Someone told me that she won the 1,000 guineas in 1981. Her Daddy was the late great Mill Reef; even I have seen his statue! My daddy was a one-morning stand back in 1984. His name was Hello Gorgeous. With parents with names like these…. I had very little chance of being named with anything but a really fancy name did I? (More about pedigree and race records etc later on). Life as a foal was very easy. Go out, eat grass, drink milk, and snuggle up to mummy, then go in and more of the same. Who could ask for a better time of it? Then abruptly in the autumn of 1985 mummy went away. I never saw her again. I now know through meeting foals since then, that this is how things are done all over the place. I try and take them under my wing and look after them whilst keeping them in line. Anyway, back to my story.
After mummy had gone away I was taken to a farm where they groomed me every day and started taking me for walks. I had a nasty tasting metal thing put into my mouth. I have later learnt that it is only nasty when certain people do things with it. It was fun going out with the other boys for a walk. We started getting really handsome. Life was a ball; we asked for nothing and got lots in return. Then the day came when we started being made to do more than walk. The people were no longer by our sides but they stood in the middle and flicked stinging strings at us, whilst we were attached to them by a long white lead. Hmmm If life is to be like this forever more, I am not sure I want any part of it. We started doing all sorts of things on this white lead, walking, stopping, whizzing round at 900 miles an hour, standing up on our hind legs boxing and generally having fun. This wasn’t so bad. Then the time came to have some crazy little monster slung up on my back. Hadn’t even noticed them until the commands for speed and slowing were coming from a different place. I was 18 months old at this time. Life was about to turn upside down.
I took being ridden in my stride, I think the people were quite impressed at how quiet I was, after all I was still a colt! I enjoyed the wanders to the grass, and the run on the grass. Pity I couldn’t eat it but I guess having a run was just as much fun. In the Late summer I had a man come to look at me. He was very official looking and carried a large notepad and wore a brown felt hat. He watched me being walked round the paddock, Then I had to be trotted up on some nasty slippery stuff that made my shoes go clip clop clip clop. Then he went away. I was to meet him again fairly soon.
I was rudely awakened at about 4.30am, although I am an early riser anyway. My new person threw some tack on me and I remember this chap stood on the grass saying:” take this one steady Mac, it’s his first time, lets just let him get a feel for it.” I was in amongst some slightly older horses who seemed to know what they were going to do. They seemed quite excited about something, but couldn’t get out of any of them exactly what it was they were jigging about. Some horses are so highly strung it is unbelievable. Anyway, we walked down this strip of sandy stuff, got to one end, turned and got a dig in the ribs. Didn’t know quite what I had to do so I just followed the rest of them, I have to say, it was quite good fun. Not entirely sure what was more fun, tanking off with a little person or making them work hard for their breakfast! I could do either depending on my mood and how early they’d come to get me. I was told by one of the other horses that I was soon to go for a proper trial. Whatever this was I guessed it would be fun. Nothing could have come further from the truth.
Having a HUGE amount of speed and stamina in my lineage, people expected me to be some sort of fantastic racehorse. I’d show them. Racing was absolutely boring, dull, monotonous, why should I try my heart out to get sweaty and be shouted at and slapped with big sweaty hands afterwards. So the two races I ran when I was 3 years old were absolute flops. I think I was third in one and a long way behind in the second. I might even have run a third race but my memory fails me at this moment in time. So, it was time for another trip on a lorry to a not so prestigious place as before to be sold.
A big man bought me he had some hair above his top lip. I was 4 years old now and as I had a hopeless race record I was not worth an awful lot. This suited me, an easy life, and no hassles…. How wrong could I have been again? The big man with a moustache turned out to be a National Hunt racehorse trainer. I must say that this idea is slightly more appealing to me than just running flat out for a few furlongs. I went straight into training on my arrival at the yard. I think his stable jockey was very scared of me, he was very cautious about coming into my room. He used to grab my headcollar as he came in. I only wanted a little taste of his flesh. I had discovered that by biting people, I could get them to behave (well at least run out of my room in pain) I am guessing this is how some people treat their animals into doing what they want. It is quite effective but they tend to get crabby with you and life is a pain in the butt when people are crabby.)
I started by going over smaller fences than my new friends at this yard did. The fences I was jumping, I later learned were called hurdles. They were very easy to jump, sort of took them in my stride really. It was about this time I met the person I was to spend the rest of my life with. I think the fears of the jockey handling me spread round the yard and got back to the guy with the moustache. I had a visit from a vet and felt a couple of pounds lighter. Not to mention the fact that I felt really woozy and a little disorientated. They thought that when they took away the hormone producers I would be nicer to them…how wrong could they have been. I was even nastier than before. I was always of the opinion that when I had my kit on, I was an absolute gentleman. But as soon as it came off...watch out people. I raced twice over hurdles. I damaged one of my legs in the second race and had to have some horrific treatment called pin firing. Hurt like hell at first, but when the swelling went down, I just guessed I was lucky to still be alive. Then I went over the bigger fences that my friends were running over...these were scary! Great big solid fences, one mistake at those and I’d be in real trouble. Had to learn to help myself when running full tilt into these fences
I didn’t like these big fences, in my first race over them I met a few famous to be faces. The guy who won my race even won the Grand National…. So I was in some pretty good company. I was sitting nicely at the back of the field, felt rather fat and unfit actually so it was where I was going to stay regardless of what him upstairs had to say about the matter. He made me muck up the striding into fence nine, until then I was puffing along nicely, then when he bodged the striding into fence ten, I hit it hard, he went sailing over in front of me and I stood looking at him laughing. Didn’t even bother to follow on. It seemed too much like hard work. Silly chap should have done what the Old Irishman did, just sat there, at least I finished the race if it was left up to me. I wasn’t used to people making the decisions for me. I went into one more race that winter, it was to be my last. I got about half way round and felt something in my leg give way, I knew the feeling, and I’d had it before. I was pulled up this time before too much damage was done. I went straight from the track to the vet’s surgery. He repaired some of the damage with carbon fibre implants, which are still there to this day. It was whilst I was recovering from this injury that my friend bought me. I was in a very sorry state, 6 months out in a field, having been a fit and well loved chap, I was stuck into a barn with enough feed and hay to keep me going but no one bothered to come and brush me. Except of course my friend, but she was away somewhere, so even she didn’t come and see me very often.
I stayed at the racing yard for a while; I was used as an escort for the loony racehorses that needed a calming influences. When these racehorses became broodmares, I was no longer needed at this yard, so my friend moved me to a small place next door. There were two tiny ponies here and a slightly bigger one. I enjoyed my time here with these little fellas but it was not what I needed, there was no warm stable to go into when it was cold and wet, I struggled to find enough grass to eat and it was a long way from where my friend lived. So 3 months later I moved again. I moved to a very nice place, just outside the village my friend lived in. I lived in a barn, next to a cob mare, she was a madam. She’d kick out at me the first opportunity she could, but if she knew she couldn’t get near you she’d flirt outrageously. There were also two tiny little ponies here and a smaller cob gelding. I used to go for rides with the two cobs, I enjoyed going out with my friend here, and we used to go out for hours. The cobs however were slow coaches. Every few strides I had to wait for them to catch up. It was only a few times we went out with them before my friend and I got cheesed off with the hanging round. So we went back to wandering about on our own. There were very few routes we didn’t explore. If we went back I am sure that we’d find some of them again.
My friend and I moved down to Dorset after two years together. We loaded all our stuff onto a lorry that smelt decidedly of pigs, hmmm wondering what quite went into this lorry. But we travelled down to Dorset; here I met a lot of new friends. There was an ageing show cob; we got on like a house on fire. I was the only gelding he’d ever got on with apparently. Must have been some sort of personality gelling thing. Two grumpy old men together. Because the lorry went to shows every week, sometimes twice a week, I was often stuffed on the wagon and taken along for the odd jumping class. Although I didn’t really do any good at this, I found it hard work making turns and jumping fences all in the confines of a small ring. I had one or two good rounds, even managed to only knock one down at Ellingham and Ringwood show. In the early autumn, I was reaching over the fence for some better grass, as you do, when I stepped back, I had something hard, heavy and not very nice attached to my leg. I panicked. Took this, whatever it was, across the field a little way and it came off. I have a heck of a pain in my pastern and hock areas. My friend was not in at the time but her boss came running out at the noise. I was patched up and ordered to stay in my stable for a week whilst the wound closed. I had got stuck in a gate. It had been tied onto the fence to provide a feeder for the sheep. When I had leant over and pushed it forwards the string was weak so that when it dropped back into place the string snapped. Hey presto…I had yet another scar to add to my collection. I wasn’t off work for long. I started working slowly about 3 weeks after the accident. But I hadn’t really lost a lot of my fitness. We decided to take things at a bit faster pace and went hunting in November. It was good fun. I was often used to help round up those mad dogs that run off barking like mad after something I rarely saw. Have since learnt from my show cob friend that it was a fox we were following. I enjoyed this kind of jumping, made me look great, especially when the man in the red coat couldn’t get over a fence and I had to show him how it was done. In the January of 1994, I was entered into a team chase. This was great fun. None of the boys in the team had ever done anything like this before, although I thought it was very much like racing without the entire hubbub. We did very well in it. Coming 7th out of 40 in the novice section, but the fences were quite big and the course quite long and challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed it! We had quite a tense moment whilst waiting to go. There had been an accident. Apparently one of my friends from the yard (her team had gone 2 teams before us) had run into a fence post (It had barbed wire wrapped round it from where they’d opened up part of the fencing) She arrived back with her chest covered in scratches, poor little lass. But I guess she recovered enough. Very traumatic for her. We were flying then, we had to all jump the fourth fence together and my friend and the others had decided to take a longer route at one of the other fences, although I think we could have gone for the faster route. We had to jump quite a lot of big fences of all descriptions and we went through a small river three times. When we got to the end I wanted to go round again. Our timing was almost spot on and we got lots of fuss and praise from our friends. I would highly recommend that any of you out there with a passion for jumping and galloping give it a go. Then the showing season was coming upon us again and my cross-country took a back seat. I was still ridden every day and went to the odd show with my friend. In the late spring it was decided that I go back to my friends sister in Essex. I wasn’t getting enough work as my friend was busy with the showing and her sister had a lame horse that couldn’t be ridden, but she had the time to ride. So the swap was made. Jazz came down and went into the field and I went back to Essex to be ridden. When I was back in Essex, I went out with the bloodhounds. Funny looking critters. Made hounds that follow foxes look positively beautiful. But we had some enjoyable days jumping cross-country fences in Friday Woods, and riding along the edge of the beach. All in the name of fun. Life was a lot less hectic up in Essex. There wasn’t the constant buzz of the professional yards I had been on and it was so much less stressful. So I just chilled out and enjoyed the peace and quiet.
A year or so went by with me just going out for walks and doing the odd bit of bloodhound hunting. Then my friend came along and took me to another professional yard. Although I was on an associate yard so it wasn’t quite as busy as the main one. These horses were mainly showjumpers. There were a few broodmares that I shared my accommodation with. Some of the wounds I saw on these poor creatures were horrendous. All in the name of sport. I think if a horse wants to jump, it will. If it doesn’t then there is no point “doing things” to it to try and improve it. I used to hack round to the school once a week for a play in the sand school. Even got taken to an UK chasers course once as a lead horse for a grade A showjumper. He really didn’t like those cross-country fences. I showed him how to do it though. I only stayed here for 6 months, and then I went back to the quiet yard with the cobs again. My friend would come and see me occasionally, but it was mainly her sister that looked after me. I was taken on trial to a hunt kennels. They kept me a week before they decided they couldn’t ride me and I, apparently, kept kicking hounds, so I was back.
My friend decided I needed to be doing something with my life, so someone from a college came to try me out. I went with them back to the college yard. I had a fairly good time of it there for a while. Then I decided to start tasting the students. Got to give the little blighters something to think about. So the woman who ran the yard decided to stick a leather thing round my chops…. No more biting. I was getting progressively grumpier. So they decided, in their wisdom, to put me to work in the school. That was their biggest mistake to date. After all I am an ex-racehorse, and I have never been worked in such a small enclosure. Seemed I’d have to show them I wasn’t very happy. I would stick my tongue out and wave my head around, buck a lot and generally have fun with whoever was riding me. I didn’t like this work and I think they thought they’d beat me in this tiny space. I showed a specific hate of turning the corners, so they started sticking a whip up my nose…not much fun but I guess I’d have to start behaving if this was how they were gonna treat someone who didn’t know what they were asking of them. I think they thought this was the way to “teach” me. I hated all the kids getting on me one after another. They would smack me in the teeth and I could tell they hated riding me. But the “torture” never stopped. Then came the end of term. My friend had always kept my front shoes on even if my back ones got taken off and she’d expressed the wish that this was to be so for me here if I got turned out. However, these people decided they knew best. Off came all my shoes. That hurt a lot, I felt like I was walking on glass shards. I hobbled round for a couple of days when these people decided it would be best if I had my shoes completely replaced. Bliss. It was only a short time before I was loaded up onto another wagon and headed off to the Northwest.