Our First Horse

A few years ago we lived in Arizona during the height of the big real estate boom. We saw the price of houses in our neighborhood jump from $150k to over $300k and the desert all around Phoenix developed. It seemed even the least attractive homes in the worst neighborhoods were suddenly very expensive. I couldn’t figure out where all the money was coming from. How could people making $40k a year afford a $300k house in need of a new roof? Years later we have our answer and the “housing crisis” continues. I feel bad for those who had to pay twice what homes were worth, only to have their mortgage payments skyrocket and the value of their houses plummet. But I hadn’t even considered the impact this might have on horses in Arizona until I read an article a few days ago on azcentral.com (the website of the Arizona Republic newspaper).

Though I’m not a fan of E.J. Montini’s controversial political views, his column post “Abandoning houses, horses and history” was well written and eye-opening. Mr. Montini interviewed Holly Marino of the non-profit Horse Rescue of North Scottsdale and discovered that people in the Phoenix area are dropping off and abandoning their horses at an increasing rate. When people can’t pay their mortgages, they can’t pay to feed or board horses. The rescue went from having around a dozen horses to having 60…SIXTY. I know what it costs to feed and maintain three horses but I can’t imagine sixty. They’re struggling to find a way to pay the expenses while looking for good homes for the horses.

The impact of the huge increase in bankruptcies and foreclosures in Arizona extends beyond people to their pets, including horses. I’ll guess it’s a problem in other previously-hot housing markets like Southern California and Florida. It’s sad for the horses and sad for the people, many of whom are probably as close to their horses as we are to ours.

I’ll be traveling to Arizona in the next few months and will try to stop by the Horse Rescue of North Scottsdale to talk with Ms. Marino about it some more.

If you’re close by and would like to help, visit their website (they have a very nice website) for more information. They’re in need of blankets, hay, feed, money and more. Even a small donation of $10 can buy a bag of feed. If you’re not close by, consider helping out your local horse rescue. The housing crisis is impacting communities around the U.S. Most rescues are non-profit and in need of financial and/or physical help.

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Gene Autry, perhaps the most famous of the singing cowboys, sang a song in the 1938 movie The Man From Music Mountain called Goodbye Pinto. It’s about a cowboy saying goodbye to his beloved fallen paint horse. The fallen horse Mikki mentioned in the previous post was a paint named Nipper. It seems appropriate to dedicate Gene’s song to the Millers, who lost their much loved horse. I wish I could play the song here but below are the lyrics. If you’re interested in the song, it’s available on a rare import cd of Gene Autry’s music appropriately titled “Goodbye Pinto” (the cd contains 21 tracks total). Unless you’re lucky enough to pick it up in a used cd shop, here’s a link to the only other place I’ve seen it for sale in the U.S. - Venerable Music (no affiliation).

Goodbye Pinto lyrics

Tis the end of our journey
Goodbye pinto
We’ll meet in the sweet by and by

I’ll be lonesome without you
Goodbye pinto
While you’re grazing new pastures in the sky

You’ll have a new range …(sorry, I can’t tell what he’s singing here)
You’ll be loping on a golden prairie

And oh how I’ll miss you
Goodbye pinto
Till we meet again to ride the range on high

You’ll have a diamond studded bridle
And a silver mounted saddle with a ruby horn

There’ll be acres full of clover
With water holes all over
Are sure as you’re born

And oh how I’ll miss you
Goodbye pinto
Till we meet again to ride the range on high

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Last night was a sad night in our little corner of the world. Yesterday afternoon, our pastor was doing some groundwork with a young horse, Nipper, when Nipper spooked, reared, and fell, hitting his head on the ground. You can tell by the title of the post how it turned out. The fall apparently caused a brain injury; he was bleeding from one ear and didn’t rouse for quite a while. He eventually came to, ate hay and neighed to his stablemate but couldn’t control his head movement and couldn’t get his back legs off the ground. After 11 hours of sitting with him, watching him periodically struggle to get up, they decided it was best to let him go. The vet came back around 11 p.m. and put him down. It was very, very sad. They have two little girls, 9 and 8, and it was just heart-wrenching to see them cry over their horse. The pastor’s wife took it even harder. They got this horse when he was only 6 weeks old and raised him. He was two years old.

And as rough as yesterday was, guess what they have to deal with today? A thousand-pound horse that’s laying in their pasture. I can’t remember if I’ve addressed this issue here before - I think I have - but a sad fact of horse ownership is that you need to have a plan in place if your horse dies. The reality of it is, a horse is really big and really heavy. You can’t just get the shovel out, dig a little hole and lay him in it like you would the family dog. So what do you do? There are a couple of options.

Our pastor (and we) own a big piece of property, so a good option is to bury the horse on the property (that’s what our pastor will do, and we would too). The problem with that is, most people don’t own the equipment necessary to dig a hole large enough for a full-grown horse, and to move that horse to the burial site. Luckily, we know people who do.

Another option is cremation. There are companies who will come and get the horse and cremate the remains. I imagine it might be kind of expensive, but I haven’t checked into that. There are also agencies - municipal, county or state - who will dispose of an animal for you (again, probably for a fee). And for those of you who aren’t as soft-hearted as we are, there are even companies who will take the body and render it for goodness-knows-what. I’m all for recycling, but I’ll have to draw the line there.

Whatever you think is the best choice for you, plan ahead. You think it won’t happen for a while, you pray it won’t, but it does. And it seems that things like this happen at the most inopportune time - late on a cold night during a holiday week, the night before it’s supposed to rain, for instance. So, as painful as it is to think about, I urge you to be prepared. It will make a difficult time a little less of a burden if you have a plan in place.

(If the photo is hard for you to see, the inscription is “The air of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears” and is inscribed on a memorial to Mary, Lady Towneley, on the Pennine Bridleway in Derbyshire, England. I found the photo at www.idonohoe.com, a mountain biking site.)

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A few weeks ago we posted about the guy who is riding across country (he’s currently in Tennessee). In the comments Elise mentioned her friend’s aunt did something similar. You’ve got to check out End of the Trail.  Bernice Ende rode 5,000 miles on her 8 year old thoroughbred mare Honor and with her dog Claire. She made the trip alone, human-wise, over the course of 16 months from May 2006 to October 2007. If you click the “Current Information” link at the top of that site you can see more information and pictures. I really admire someone who can take a 16 month horse ride. I imagine it takes a lot of skill, some money in the bank and a very comfortable saddle. During her trip, Honor went through 14 sets of horseshoes. I hadn’t heard the term before but I read this kind of trip is called “Long Riding”.

I’m not sure I’d want to take that long of a trip but I can appreciate the desire to get away from the world and live without deadlines and much responsibility. I’m sure she discovered a lot about herself and America along the way. I’ve bookmarked her site so I’m ready in case she decides to do it again.

Thanks for the note, Elise.

Also, Bernice probably couldn’t have done it without a decent sponsor and it looks like a company called Outfitters Supply filled that role. It looks like they really helped her out along the way so I think it’s worth clicking over to their online store to check them out. They carry a lot of trail gear I haven’t seen in the other online stores I’ve been to. I’ve never done business with them, they’re not paying me anything for the link and we’re not affiliated.

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We were tagged by Show Your Pony to share eight things you might not know about us. Since there are two of us, we’ll both go. (Do we only have to do 4 each? Just kidding…) But after a year and a half on this blog, I can’t imagine there are eight things you don’t know about me already that you’d want to. But here goes:

1. One of my first horseback rides was at Girl Scout camp. They asked whether I was an experienced rider, and either out of pride or naiveté, I said I was and got a horse named Charlie Brown. He proceeded to take me under every tree on the trail going after grass to graze, because of course I couldn’t control him. I got a good chewing out by the camp counselor for misrepresenting my riding skill.
2. Another memorable ride - although I don’t remember this horse’s name or even who I was riding with - was a ride from the woman’s home to a nearby park. To get there, we had to ride across Phoenix city streets (there were almost no cars). That mare was pretty well-behaved, until we got to an intersection that had recently been painted. There was nothing I could do to convince her to walk across the bright white “right turn only” arrow. That thing completely freaked her out.
3. I’m going to write a novel next month. Wow, does that sound awe-inspiring or what? It’s not as cool as it sounds, but I should just let people think it is. November is National Novel Writing Month; check out www.nanowrimo.org for details. Basically, people all over the world try to churn out a 50,000 page novel in 30 days. No one else reads it, unless you want them to. It doesn’t have to be any good. It’s just kind of a challenge to yourself. If you succeed, you get a cool certificate. If you don’t, you tell yourself that next year, you’ll do it, by crikey!
4. I have a tattoo. It’s a rose, and says “Bill.” That’s only shocking if you really know me. People who know me in person are always shocked. I guess I don’t appear to be a tattoo kind of girl. Anyway, just play along and say, “No way!” in your head.
5. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up. Then when I grew up, I wanted to be a lawyer. Then I worked for lawyers for 18 years and decided that wasn’t such a cool job anymore. Now I think I just want to be a cowgirl.
6. When I was growing up, my grandma’s nickname for me was Grace. I don’t think she meant it as a compliment. I do, however, think it was fitting.
7. The first time I rode my horse, Valentine, I fell off. Well, not exactly while riding him; when I got off, my foot caught in the stirrup and I kinda fell out and landed on my back. Nothing was hurt but my pride - but Bill did get the whole thing on video. And no, we will not be posting that footage. Ever.
8. I met and had my picture taken with Patrick Swayze at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show in 1992. I’ll have to dig that photo up and post it here.

So, I guess you’re supposed to tag some more blogs here, but I think everybody we know that’s animal-related has already been tagged. Except for these (and I think it’s fair that Bill and I share these, don’t you, since we know all the same blogs?):

Bridlepath

Coppertop

Hoofbeats

Horses, Cows and Goats, Oh My!

Horseshues

Triple H Horse Farm

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I was making my way through the October 2007 issue of Horse and Rider magazine this week when I came across what I thought was a great premise for an article. It’s called “Barn Names” and it discusses something near and dear to my heart - the names we actually call our horses on a regular basis. For those of you newer to horses than I am, the official or fancy name (as I call it) given to a horse is typically derived using a combination of the names of the mama (dam) and daddy (sire) horse. So if Mitsy’s Goober and Trackside Smooch decided it was time to have a baby horse, the foal could quite possibly be referred to as Goober Smooch, Goober’s Smooch or Smooche’s Goober. That’s actually a cool name but usually it’s something like “YR All Dun Playin”, a real life example given in the article. I can’t imagine many people go around calling their horse by their fancy name (”here YR All Dun Playin. Who’se a good YR All Dun Playin?”). That’s why most of us have come up with cutesy, easy to say barn names like…well…Moonshine and Valentine.

The article was interesting but a little disappointing. I guess I expected more funny or clever names. Still, “Beau-Zo”, “Preacher” and “Lolly” are all fun and they all had stories behind them. But I know there must be some doozies out there. Have you come across a particularly interesting barn name? Do you know the story behind it? If you have a horse, what do you call him/her and why? I’d love to hear your stories.

You probably already know this by now but here are ours:

Valentine - our first horse. He had another name when I bought him but since he was a Valentine’s Day present for Mikki, the Kid and I came up with “Valentine”. It seemed to fit and it’s easy to say.

Moonshine - my first horse had some goofy fancy name that had the word “moon” in it. I couldn’t remember what it was (still can’t) so as a joke I called her Moonshine. Hey, we live near the mountains in east Tennessee and moonshine was a big deal around here during prohibition and some say it’s still made by the old-timers. So it was kind of a local joke, too. And lastly, she sure is pretty. I think she stands out like the glow from a moonlit night.

Okay, your turn!

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