Adopted Corolla wild horse is now an award winner « The Outer Banks Voice

Adopted Corolla wild horse is now an award winner « The Outer Banks Voice

Little Big Man

I find few things more heroic than the overcoming of disabilities. Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Lido lived heroic lives.

Tradewind has too. He was removed from the wild at Corolla because he was absolutely crippled with founder. It took more than a year of Pete Ramey style trimming before he could walk without pain. He is 12.2 and weighs 626 pounds. He has been ridden fifty miles in a day. While my weight varied from 222-212 in just one year he carried me 206 hours in the woods, the vast majority of that being trotting and cantering. That does not include the many hours that he carried other riders in the woods during the same year.

Yesterday the was named Horse of the Americas Registry's National Pleasure Trail Horse of the Year for his accomplishments. Look back over those figures in the paragraph just above us. Those are not typos. Yes, the figures are shocking. As recently as three years ago I did not know that this was possible. Tradewind is smaller than the pony that I rode when I was three years old.

(Please refer back to the previous post which distinguishes between ignorance and arrogant stupidity. One who simply had no idea that a Colonial Spanish horse of such small size could achieve such feats is merely ignorant. One who reads of such accomplishments and scoffs that such feats are impossible or, even worse, that it is cruel to subject a pony to such loads is arrogant and stupid.)

Here is the point that Tradewind's accomplishments should drive home to every one that cares about horses--The Corollas are a genetic treasure trove. The term super horse may very well be appropriate.

We simply cannot allow these horses to become extinct. To do so would be the height of stupid arrogance.

They Must Really Be Good a Limbo Dancing

Just how low can the established horse world go? I thought that they had bottomed out with their argument that we must encourage horse slaughter to prevent bad things from happening to horses. At the essential core of the belief system that passes for horsemanship in the established horse world is that appearance always trumps reality. A close second to that belief is the belief that a horse's value lies only in what it can be sold for.

Their sordid enthusiasm for horse slaughter demonstrates these twisted beliefs well. Horse slaughter is promoted as a great good because it creates a "floor price" for horses which (now get this part!) increases their "value". In order to make slaughter appear better, kinder, gentler, and, yes, logical--slaughter is to be referred to as "processing."

Who could possibly object to processing, especially if it increases a horse's value?

It has been said that the conservative has no heart and that the liberal has no brain.

Do these horse people have either one?

I Sure Am Going To Miss That Little Girl

Athletes are easier to teach to ride than people who have already had years of riding lessons. Ruthann is an athlete. She learned to ride in the blink of an eye. She rides hard--faster than I prefer and through terrain that I would not choose to go through.

She put hundred of miles on her mustang, Medicine Dog. She turned Medicine Dog from a good trail horse into a great trail horse. Not long ago she rode Medicine Dog down for her first trip to the James river and this photo was from that trip.

Unfortunately, Ruthann is grown. As a result thereof, she has a job and adult responsibilities. Her job as an Air Force nurse is requiring her to move to Alaska. Friday we had our last ride together. She told Medicine Dog good bye and is about to drive off to Alaska.

On the way she will be stopping off in Michigan to get married. That boy is luckier than I expect that he realizes.

An Undeserved Reputation

I explained that I hold my reins loosely, "no tighter than I hold a fork when I am eating."

"I just cannot picture that!," she said.

"No, really there is no point in squeezing the reins," I pointed out once again.

"I have no problem with that. It is just that I cannot imagine you actually using a fork to eat," she clarified.

(I bet David Niven never had to put up with such comments).