The Early Days

Growing up, I always hated riding the mares.  They weren't always consistent and it all depended on whether or not they were in heat.  There was only one mare that I ever enjoyed riding, looking back it's not surprising that she too was a Thoroughbred.  After she left the farm to return to life as a broodmare, I went back to riding the boys.  I swore up and down I'd never own a mare, only geldings, unless I was breeding. 

Fast forward five years.  A little filly I've dubbed George quickly captured my heart.  The plain bay filly with the bright shock of white on the right side of her forehead had to make a liar out of me.  The stories are many, and many are forgotten, I won't share them all, but remembering them now is what's keeping me going through this fiasco.

Tapping me on the side was certainly the first step in this journey.  The doe like, inquisitive look from the other the side of the mare certainly didn't hurt.  I learned that this look of wonder in the gentle eye was not a temporary one, it was one that would stay with her.  What many foals would find frightening, she found intriguing.  She was, however, also quite lazy.

I've mentioned before how she wore booties to protect her heels when she was out in the field.  Well putting these booties on became quite the chore.  Not necessarily for the person putting the booties on (although she was a brat about that) but for the person holding her.  Not uncommonly this was me.  At this point, a lot of you who have dealt with foals, probably think you know where I'm going with this.  But, she was as quiet as could be.  Catching the inquisitive filly was never a problem.  And she didn't fight when you held her, in fact she would have been even easier to hold if she were just a hair bigger so I wouldn't have had to stoop so much. 

The thing is, she quickly learned that it wasn't to bad to have a human wrap their arms around you...it meant you didn't have to stand on your own feet.  Especially when her hind bootie was being put on, she'd slowly tip into me like she was laying down into a hammock.  No concern what so ever, and at less than 100 lbs, I could hold her.  The problem of course is that they never stay 100 lbs.  My supervisor recognized this, even without looking to see what the filly was actually doing.  So, we worked out the timing, she got out of the danger zone of thrashing hooves while still holding the filly's back hoof, and on the count of three I backed up quickly, dropping the filly to the floor.  The filly rolled backwards, looked momentarily confused in a "now how did that happen?" kind of way, and hopped back up.  Repeat for the other side.  Repeat for at least a week, eventually she'll learn!