Failure and Fox Fire

I guess the best thing that I can say is that I am surprised that I failed so badly yesterday. I really did not expect failure, but it found me at around 7:30 last night. I really planned to ride 100 miles in one day. We began riding at at 3:15 in the morning and I gave up after only 65 miles. I may be joining the ranks of the many who have discovered that they not only are not the men they once were, but that they were never the men that they once were.

Failure was perhaps foreseeable, but what happened on the first leg of the effort was not. I often forget to remove my glasses when riding in the dark. (They are tinted and reduce even the small amount of light that exists in the woods at night from reaching my corneas.)As we set out after 3:00 am I remembered to take them off.

Without my glasses I have very poor vision. I have gotten used to not being able to see things that are there but am still entertained by the fact that without my glasses I often see things that are not there. For example, when riding in the darkness I often find myself swerving to avoid trees that are clearly directly in my path and could cause serious injury to me or my horse, but for the fact that they do not exist. The illusions are interesting. I had several such illusions yesterday morning but then I encountered something that was a bit chilling. (This is not a joke).

Lydia was riding Owl Prophet who prefers to hang back a bit from the horse ahead of him, even in the day light. She was far enough behind me so that I could not hear his hooves strike the ground as we cantered along. (Again, no big deal in that, aside from needing glasses and having only a few more teeth than the average rooster, my hearing is beyond impaired.)

On occasion when riding in the darkness I see patches of lighter spaces a head of me. I assume that they are spots where moonbeams reach the forest floor. What I saw ahead of me was not a patch of lightness. About fifty yards ahead of me the trail was glowing. I yelled back to Lydia to ask her what was going on in front of us. I had never seen such a burst of light.

She told me that there was nothing there. She said that she could not see any light in front off us at all. As she is telling me this I continued to see the path ahead of me lit up like the premier screening of a movie in the 1930's.

We changed direction. We got on with the ride. Obviously, what ever I saw was merely an illusion resulting from the darkness and my poor eye sight. Obviously, that must be the case because Lydia saw nothing. I am a grown, and often rational man. Obviously I should never have any concern about riding through there again in the darkness, even by myself.

But I will not do that even though Lydia saw nothing. I was riding Holland. Holland does not rear, ever. When someone turned on the lights in the middle of the woods Holland began rearing. Lydia did not see anything, but Holland and I did.

This is a picture of Holland, my great Shackleford Spanish mustang, a few days after he came to live with me. He is a calm, rational horse.

Like Mark Twain, he does not believe in ghosts at all but he is afraid of them.

If Wishes Were Horses...

The best leaders rally and inspire so many other people to action that it becomes difficult to look back at accomplishments and give credit to the specific people responsible for those successes. However, there is often a single individual that, even though they had the help of others, was truly indispensable. In short, were it not for that one person the accomplishments would not have been made.

Karen McCalpin has been the executive director of the the Corolla Wild Horse Fund for about five years. She did not grow up with these horses. She has no family tie with these horses, yet she has thrown her life into protecting the wild and free herd of Corolla Spanish mustangs.

But for her work:
The Wild Horse Fund would not be a member supported organization with members from across the nation;
The Horse of the Americas Registry would never have been drawn into the effort to save these horses;
The wild horses of the Outer Banks would not be the state horse of North Carolina;
There would be no effort to expand the legal protections to maintain the wild herd of Corolla;
There would be no offsite breeding program for the Corollas;
There would be no tame Corollas prancing in the Duck July 4 parade while their wild relatives pranced on the beach of Corolla;and
There would not be the assemblage of genetic and other evidence to make it crystal clear that the wild horses of Corolla are among the oldest and rarest distinct gentic grouping of horses found in the nation.

Most of all, but for the work of Karen McCalpin there would be no realistic hope of preserving the wild horses of Corolla.

Over the years I have taken many of my young riders down to Corolla for Board meetings and other events. I have brought many girls and young ladies down specifically because I wanted them to meet Karen and see what a difference one women can make. I stress to all of my little riders that want to grow up to have a "horse job" that becoming a veterinarian is just one way to do so. I let them understand that a person will have to be a vet for a very long time before they will save as many horses as Karen has through her efforts to prevent the extinction of the Corollas.

In the next few days Karen has a birthday coming up. I do not know how old she is, but I do know that the struggle that this job has been for her has made her much older than really she is.

But for Karen McCalpin the wild horses of Corolla would have no chance of avoiding extinction.

But for Karen McCalpin there would be no hope.

Happy Birthday Karen.

Lydia Rode Him in The Round Pen.

Edward Teach--the wild Corolla stallion that came to us with life threatening wounds on his neck. He never resisted. That which she asked is that which he did. It was a short ride by my choice. We planned to move him down to the round pen in the sand for her to ride him much more but the film crew had all the footage of wild horse starting that they needed. By 10:30 am she was on him and he was calm.

Another wild horse under her belt. Lydia is 16 and she can train horses as good as I can. Her parents produced a first rate kid. I produced a first rate horseman. I am proud of that.

Edward Teach is going to be a first rate Colonial Spanish mustang stallion and will be a great addition to the Corolla offsite breeding program.

In Deeper Than Hansel and Gretel

We have have fenced in about 20 acres of mixed forest for the horse's dietary pleasure. To my surprise they had not hit it hard after nearly a month of having access to the woods. That all came to an end yesterday.

When I got to the horse lot only one male horse could be seen. Everyone else was deep, deep in the woods. They came out very slowly, bellies full of tender shoots, new leaves and fresh browse. High in long stem fiber, a diverse set of minerals and vitamins compared to hay and uniform pasture,--this is a great addition to the natural environment that we seek to provide for our horses. The investment in wire fence was not significant. If I had fenced this woods in a decade ago it would have saved me at least $40,000.00 in hay costs over that same period of time. The horses would have been even happier and likely healthier than they are now.

But I did not do so because I lacked the business judgement to innovate and invest. My response to every economic challenge that we faced was the same--work harder. It was not a bad strategy, but it was not the best strategy.

From now on every decision that I make regarding the program will be based on a very few criterion:

1. Is it good for the horses?
2. Will ii decrease costs?
3. Will it increase income?
4. Will it give me a sense of satisfaction to have it done?

We will also be looking at long term program management that will narrow our focus and sharpen our goals. My plans for retirement have always been based on a vague notion of getting killed by a horse while in my fifties. While economically sound (death is very affordable) it leaves too much to chance, (e.g. suppose no horse kills me) Considering my family history and the great numbers that my blood work always seems to produce I am likely to live to be a hundred.

Longevity has its place and I want to place my longevity in the middle of a horse lot somewhere. That means that it is time for this horse operation to become a part of our family's financial future.

Step one will be for me to adopt the use of certain business terminology that I have always had great difficulty using--such as saying the word "no".

Spring Purgative

When every direction looks to be an avenue to a different disappointment, I find a bit of relief by pushing myself harder than would be expected of a typical 51 year old prosecutor. Lately each direction has been more a freeway of disappointment than a mere avenue. It is time to purge myself. It is time to do something out of the ordinary from which I can take a modicum of pride.

I am going to take a hard ride pretty much by myself. I want to ride 100 miles in less than 24 hours. I will use a string of several Corollas and other American Indian horses.

That is Washikie, the Shoshone chief, in the center of the picture above. He was older than I am when this picture was taken. That is not a recliner that he is sitting on.