My mare, Missy, has lots of personality--not all of it good. She has a little streak of the devil in her that can make her a bit hardheaded and opinionated. Some say she takes after her owner.
In 1993, after surviving a big wreck, I had decided that riding a mule was not for me. I had about $400 of the proceeds of the sale of my mule toward buying another horse. I had the opportunity to ride a gaited horse and fell in love with the big, easy strides. Being Scottish, I began looking for a bargain and found an ad in the Recycler for a 2 year old registered Tennessee Walking Horse mare for $750.
When I called, I found out that she was unbroken and, by the way, a bit toed-out in front. Not looking for perfection, I decided to take a look.
The mare had been purchased at the El Monte auction by a kind-hearted soul named Kimmy who would buy horses at the auction and then find homes for them. With way more time than money on my hands, I talked Kimmy down to $650, bought a book on horse training, and brought Pride’s Miss Bummie home.
My vet took a look at Missy and asked me what I wanted with a splay-footed filly. My farrier called her the “North South Horse” because her front hooves pointed in two different directions at once. She does resemble Charlie Chaplin, and kind of walks like him, too. A friend suggested that I call an acquaintance of hers who owned a very splay-footed horse, and that lady gave me some advice that I took to heart: her horse was in its 20s and had stayed sound. As long as I realized my horse wasn’t cut out to be a gymkhana horse or expected to do anything involving quick turns, she would probably be okay.
Missy has a bit of an attitude, but so do I. Training her was not always a smooth process. I had ridden since I was 5 years old, but I had never trained a horse before.
A Buckin’ Fool
Things were going well at first, but we hit a wall in our progress. I started working with a professional trainer who got us going on the right track, but I soon found out that Missy was a buckin’ fool! She’d throw hissy fits when things didn’t go her way. But if you’ve ever been bucked by a Walking Horse, you know that it’s smooth and easier to ride through than the buck of a regular horse. After a couple of annoying bucking episodes, one of which nearly planted me face first in a cactus patch, and providing way too much entertainment for my friends, my boyfriend offered to ride her out.
As a kid, he had ridden a lot of cold backed broomtail broncos working summers with his dad, an itinerant, saddle-in-hand cowboy. When Missy got snotty with him, he told her to give it her best shot. Missy’s lazy, which comes in handy sometimes. She decided it was too much work to buck, and being asked to buck must have taken the fun out of it. She’s thrown in a few hops here and there since just to keep life interesting, but not the full on, heads down romps she used to do.
Hapless Hobbles
I trained Missy to run with hobbles on: Not on purpose. I’ve since learned that there’s more to training a horse to hobble than just starting with a horse that’ll let you put anything on their legs. She let me put the hobbles on without a problem, but then got pretty steamed when she felt their limiting effect. She tested those limits and found that she could gallop really fast if she lifted both front legs at once and then she immediately freight-trained right toward me! Mad as a bull, she charged at me, and only a sturdy pipe panel fence saved me from her wrath. She reverted back to lazy in a moment, and I was at square one in her hobble training.
I need to hobble my horses on occasion, particularly on pack trips, so I called my packer pal for advice and he suggested that I tie a lead rope from her halter down to the middle of the hobbles. That worked for a few months, then Missy learned to run by lifting her head and front legs in unison. Another friend gave me a single hobble and suggested I tie a back leg to the front legs instead. This has worked for the last seven years, but Missy can still scoot pretty fast with three legs tied together, but not faster than I can run. The trick is to make sure she’s got lots of yummy grass to eat close at hand, and keep a loud grazing bell on her.
During the first five years I had Missy, she was perpetually “for sale.” But our first five minutes on any trail ride were enough to convince anyone remotely interested that she should stay mine. Poverty and persistence kept me riding Missy, but after time my love-hate relationship with Missy grew into a full on love affair. She might have attitude, but she has a lot of heart too. She’s a smart horse, who now trusts me enough to let me do most of the thinking.
Missy and I have ridden many challenging trails, and brush-popped on many occasions. She’s confidently crossed swinging bridges, wide deep rivers, razorback ridges just an ax handle wide, and navigated the sides of mountains where the trail has fallen off.
She’s the perfect horse to do trail maintenance with because, being lazy, she’ll happily stand for as long as I want while I trim brush, or work on trail treads. Many times she has let me tie to the saddle large tools, rifles, every odd load, and even carried dogs, cats, falcons, and other critters up on the saddle. She’s an awesome pack horse: gaited horses won’t break eggs or shake up your beers!
She’s been enlisted to pony nervous horses, often with nervous riders aboard. She’s sweet as pie when I’ve ridden her double with kids, including my own daughter, who has ridden with me since she was a month old. I trust Missy that much now.
Throughout it all, she has stayed level-headed in some fairly weird situations.
Missy is a clown. She lolls her tongue, letting it hang out of the side of her mouth whenever she’s content. When I first started riding her, it bothered me, but then I realized that when her tongue was hanging out, she was happy, and wasn’t in the mood to buck. Her big pink tongue swaying in the breeze had positive connotations.
Have I painted a picture of equine pulchritude yet?
Loves A Parade
Missy is the best parade horse. She’s a show-off, posing for the crowd, mugging for cameras. She has been in many parades in the last 10 years. She gets very excited. I think she likes it. She’s been dressed in many imaginative ways: from accurate antique tack to posing as an alien, covered in aluminum foil. She knows when she’s going to a parade days before the event because she gets a beauty treatment. She has a thorough bath, her whiskers shaved and her ears trimmed, her mane and tail brushed and braided, her hooves polished, her face gently washed and fed lots of treats. This does not happen before a trail ride. Missy’s not the perfect visual representative of the breed, but she cleans up pretty good.
You might say that I trained Missy, but Missy has taught me a lot more. She has taught me patience and the importance of doing things right the first time. She has taught me that horses have their own opinions, and that one should never let one’s guard down, no matter how much you love and trust a 1,000 pound animal. She has taught me that horses are very forgiving creatures, deserving of our respect.
My favorite times spent with Missy are on our moonlight rides to the local Mexican restaurant. When we get to the top of the ridge between my house and the restaurant, overlooking the valley we call home, bathed in grey moonlight with the lights of the houses below the mountains, I give my horse a hug and tell her how much I love her. She just sticks her tongue out at me.
Missy’s owner Marcy Watton lives in Leona Valley with her horse-crazy 7 year old daughter, Georgia, and two horses, two dogs, two cats, two goats, seven chickens, and numerous fish. In addition to riding with Jay Paddock’s group, Los Galgos, in the Santa Barbara Fiesta Days Parade, she is the legislative advisor for Antelope Valley Trails, Recreation and Environmental Council; and a member of the Backcountry Horsemen of California, Redshank Riders unit; and the High Desert Trail Riders. She is also the Grand Exalted Mogul of The Trail Blazers, a private riding club that has been in existence since 1939.