A Good Horse
A Good Horse
I decided that since I was sitting here waiting for the well man to show up – he’s kind of like the phone guy, “I’ll be there between 12 and 5” – I would start on the June doing’s at the ole farm. As you can tell by my opening sentence the well broke. It seems to do this at least once a year and it costs over $100.00 for the repair crew just to step on the property and it is all uphill from there. The nice thing is they usually do come the same day that you call them but I always make the mistake of telling them that mine is an irrigation well, not a house well, so they bump me down to low priority. That’s ok, though – I think that if the only source of water to your home was from a well – you probably need service worse than I.
My house is on “city” water and even though the water company tried to get me to change over to using my own well – I said no, just in case something like this happens. It’s a pain, but I can get water to the horses from the house spigots even if it does take a jillion miles of hose. I actually have four wells on my property and the local water company used to lease three of the wells. They were originally dug to service the Iron King Mine back in the ‘30s, but when the mine shut down they sold the lease to a newly formed water company here in Humboldt. When I bought the place they had just signed a new 15 year lease contract with the previous owners and I was part of their system even though I had to pay for my own water. That just seems wrong somehow – having the wells on the property and having to pay for my own water.
The lease finally came up for renewal and I, thinking that the $100.00 a year the water company was paying me just wasn’ t near enough money to supply water to the whole town of Humboldt, took them to court to ask for more. They weren’t happy, tore up the lease, bought some property and dug their own wells just down the road. I am still in the service area so there is one lone line that runs from their new well out to me. Needless to say, I am never late with the bill because I like having a double source of water. My extra wells sit unused and unloved, but if the property were ever divided, I could sell the land with a well.
Anyway, the mower man came yesterday and mowed all the pastures but I hadn’t been able to water until he came. A tractor will make terrible ruts in a muddy field and there is no way to get them out except to plow the field up. I had put in a request to have him mow about three weeks ago because I can control my irrigation but once the summer rains start it becomes very hard to schedule. Now, the fields look lovely but are dry – so I went to turn the well on to irrigate them this morning, and no water. And so here I sit.
Sorry – it is amazing how easily I can get sidetracked. June has been hot and dry. Not as hot as some of you, I guess, but pretty bad. I hate the heat and so I stay inside under the air conditioner and read. I tend to get up really early and do the chores when it is still nice outside. The place is looking pretty sharp. The kid I hired to take Matt’s place has been a godsend. I had him pull everything out of the tackroom and we sorted it into three big piles – trash, keep, and Matt’s stuff, which sort of looked like trash. He isn’t exactly a hoarder, but close. Then I took the hose to the inside and power-sprayed 30 years of dirt out the door. Well, I was hoping it would go out the door or seep out under the walls, but the tackroom was too well-built and when I was done spraying, I was standing in about six inches of water. I couldn’t even turn off the well (it was working then) because I just wasn’t brave enough to stand in water and pull the handle to turn it off. In the end, I had to have a friend come over with a shop vac and suck all the water and dirt out.
Then we put everything back in and wow does it look nice. Even Matt’s corner looks better – I threw out a lot of his stuff, any bottles that weren’t full or didn’t have a label, bandages that the mice had eaten, broken or ruined tack, etc. I am sure I tossed some of his secret trainer’s elixirs but too bad! It took two trips to the dump to get rid of all the trash. I even threw all of the gazillion ribbons I had won during my 30 plus years of show horse riding. That was hard but ribbons are so worthless and mean nothing to anyone but the person who won them, so out they went.
Speaking of Matt – he’s not having a good time in Denver, or so he says, babysitting his two jockeys. One is ok, but the other whines, and gets mad about the horses he rides, and how the trainers are dumb and the owners dumber. He grouses about this that and the other and drives everyone crazy. Matt says never again, but after another winter of boredom working for me and my mom he’ll be ready to leave again, I’m sure. He was offered the Assistant Racing Secretary’s job at Turf Paradise this winter but turned it down. I think he’s nuts but he says he won’t work for the guy who owns the track. A man of principals, is Matt.
OK, now the sad news. I am down to four horses here on the farm. I finally had to bite the bullet (maybe that’s a bad choice of words) and put poor old Butch down. He was having a harder and harder time getting up and I was having a harder and harder time trying to help him. With our rainy season approaching I knew how much harder it was going to be on his old bones – I know this because mine get sore and achy too from the change in atmospheric pressure. So I called the vet and the backhoe guy and we coordinated a time and now he is buried out under a tree near the arena. It was very sad but one of those things that has to be done. I shed some tears while I brushed him and he ate his last supper of carrots, apples and sweetfeed.
Butch had a prophet’s thumb mark on his neck. It is supposed to the mark of a good horse and Butch was a good horse. He was a super rope horse in his younger years, a great teacher of riding and in his later years he taught young horses how to be calm in the horse trailer and helped ease the stress of foals after weaning before eventually living out his days on green pasture.
For those of you that don’t know what a prophet’s thumb is, it is an indentation on a horse’s body, usually on his neck, about the size of a thumb print. Legend has it that the Prophet Mohammed went out and marked his five best mares with his thumb print and any horse that carries the mark should be treasured and treated with great respect. It was originally intended to be only for Arabians but over the generations it must have crossed into other breeds. Here is the story.
The five mares of Mohammed
by Ilil Arbel, Ph.D.
The hot desert wind blew against the tent, driving the dust inside. Fatima walked softly in, carrying an earthenware jug full of cold water, and handed it to the Prophet. “Please, stop tormenting yourself, Mohammed,” she said, “drink some water!”
“I will drink when the test is over, and the horses can drink, too. I cannot drink knowing they are thirsty,” said the Prophet to his daughter.
“I do not understand this test, nor do I like it,” said Fatima angrily. “Depriving the horses from drinking for three full days is cruel. I cannot believe you would do it, a man who loves animals better than himself!”
“I must. Allah commanded me — would you have me disobey God? The spread of Islam depends greatly on the loyalty and strength of our horses. The best of these horses, said Allah, will be honored till the end of time… But it is the evening of the third day now, so let us go to the horses and conduct the test.”
He took a horn that hung at the tent’s entrance, and walked toward an enclosure where about a hundred horses were confined, a little distance from the water hole of the oasis. The horses looked reproachfully at their beloved master as he quickly opened the gate. Tormented by thirst, the horses galloped to the water hole, but before they could reach it, Mohammed raised the horn to his lips and sounded the call for war.
The horses ignored it. They were so thirsty that perhaps they couldn’t even hear it, and went on galloping toward the water. But not all of them. Five mares stopped. Without hesitation, they turned around and returned to Mohammed, ready to do whatever was required of them.
The Prophet stroked their silky manes, tears in his eyes. He led them to the water and envisioned the glorious future as they drank. He knew that these mares would foal the finest of Arab horses, the only horses of pure blood, the horses that would help bring Islam to every corner of the Earth.
As for the other horses, they are well. Nae Doot has turned into a sweetheart and when my 92 year old mother came out the other day, he came right up to the fence to see her. It might have helped just a little that she had an apple. He never used to be friendly so it is nice to see. Icy is bored with farm life and will head down the hill to Phoenix around the first of August. Icy likes to do things and even though he now lives with Barilla who chases him around, he is ready to go back in training. It will take at least three months to get him ready to run, barring accidents, so look for him in November.
Cash had a relapse. After his throat surgery in May, we had him scoped per doctor’s orders in mid-June. He hadn’t healed very well and there was some infection around the edges of the laser cut. So he went back on antibiotics and throat drench and is due to be scoped again this week to see how he is doing. The trouble with laser surgery is they have a hard time getting it right – they either take too much or not enough. At least that is what my trainer’s vet said. It is still better than when they used to do it with a knife. So here’s hoping he scopes clean or that it is at least healing.
Barilla is going to stay here at the farm until December. Turf Paradise can be pretty tough competition wise, during the winter, but gets easier near the end of the meet. She has a hard time being competitive even on the bottom – but once trainers start shipping out for the summer in March, she will be fresh and will hopefully pay her way. She needs Yavapai to open!
Since Arizona’s budget is back in the black, the Arizona Breeder’s Association successfully petitioned to re-instate our breeder’s awards. If you have an Arizona bred horse, every time they win a race – the state gives you money. It isn’t much, but better than the nothing we have had for the past couple of years. So of course, I had just joined the New Mexico Breeder’s Association so Crown Secret could have a New Mexico-bred baby, when I found out. But that’s ok – I will leave her at the farm in NM to foal and probably breed her back to the same horse and then bring both her and her baby back here, so the next foal will be an AZ bred. That’s assuming all goes well and that’s always assuming a lot.
That’s about all the news from here, plus this is getting long and I wouldn’t want you to get bored.