HORSE(S) OF THE MONTH

Painted M Ranch’s very first boarders were Rocky and Tommy. Rocky and Tommy were so anxious to move to their new home that they got permission to move a couple of weeks before we were open for business. It is only fitting that Rocky and Tommy are our first featured “Horse(s) of the Month”. Below, as told by Lori Hendry is Rocky’s, Tommy’s, Lyn’s and Lori’s story.

How Lyn and I got involved in Horses:

It was all Julie’s fault.
I had always loved horses and wanted to have one growing up, but my family was unable to afford one. I had a friend at work (Julie) who also had wanted horses when she was growing up and purchased her first horse as an adult. Julie took me riding with her and a couple of years after Lyn and I were married Julie helped me pick out my first horse. (By the way, I did ask Lyn if it was okay if I got a horse).
Pretty quickly, Lyn was joining us at the stable and got a horse of his own. We have been riding now about 22 years and, of course, are on a different set of horses than the ones that we started with.
We have mainly had Thoroughbreds or Thoroughbred crosses as these tend to have the speed and athleticism needed to do combined training. Combined Training/Eventing arose out of the contests cavalry officers had to try and prove whose horse was a better military mount. The Dressage phase is to prove control of the horse in a “review of the troops” or parade situation. The higher level movements come directly from battle field maneuvers that were taught to the horse. Cross country – jumping immovable objects at speed – were to prove the horse had the speed and ability to traverse a course of speed and obstacles in order to prove the ability to traverse a battlefield or to deliver a message. The length of the course, height of the obstacles and speed in which it needs to be completed varies of course by the level of the training, but Novice starts out with the jumps up to 2 feet 11 inches with up to 15 jumping efforts, distance runs over a mile and the time to complete is about 5 minutes. (For a comparison Novice is 350 meters per minute and Thoroughbreds run on the race course at about 750 meters per minute). Stadium jumping is the final phase and is to demonstrate the ability of the horse to remain sound and under control after completing the exhausting cross country course.

Our current horses are Rocky, who will be 10 in February and Tommy who will be 9 in May. Rocky was purchased when my horse of many years died from colic. We purchased him as a 2 year old and he has always been extremely laid back (okay – lazy). As far as we can guess, he is a Thoroughbred Quarter cross, but we really aren’t sure as we purchased him from a horse trader who didn’t have much information on him. When it became obvious that it was getting increasingly difficult for me to get on him, (I was using the picnic table as a mounting block, and he was still growing as a 3 years old) I suggested that Lyn retire his event horse as he was over 20 years old, and take on Rocky.

We bought Tommy when he was 18 months old. Tommy was bred to race, but the breeder was trying to get the size of the dam and the speed of the sire and instead got a duplicate of the smaller sire. As all Thoroughbreds have their birthday on January 1 he was automatically 5 months behind his racing age group. The breeder predicted that he wouldn’t grow to be 15hh and considered the match a failure and didn’t register him. That is how I was able to get a great-grandson of Seattle Slew. Tommy is about 15.3hh and I don’t need the picnic table to get on him.

Sam asked if we could tell something about our horses “quirks”. As we had the horses on our own place from the time we got them, until they were 4 and 5 years old we found out they had quite a few “quirks. Rocky, as the older of the two, was the leader in any mischief, but Tommy was close behind in helping with the pranks. Rocky knows how to open gates, turn on faucets (he loves to play in the water) and he may know how to open door-knobs. We heard Rocky on our front porch one night when we had turned them out to graze in the front yard. He was rattling the door knob – I’m glad we locked the door that night. They have been known to steal tools, tear up tractor seats (while the tractor was idling), steal jackets and take off with them to get you to chase them.

Tommy likes vehicles – he has pulled the rubber bumpers off the Jeep hood, the grommets out of the Ram’s bumper, and gnawed the truck’s mirrors. They also used to put their heads over the fence and take kisses from the dogs, peek into the kitchen window if they were grazing in the front yard and “help” with the yard work.

Tommy can fit through a “people” door – I have had to chase him out of the garage more than once. When Tommy has his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth he is looking for mischief – watch out!

Subject to the willingness of our boarders to participate in this program, we will have a new “featured horse” beginning each month of the year.