The Nature Of Horses

Enjoying A Beautiful Day!

This morning at our Peaceful Forest Homestead we woke up to -2 degrees. But NO SNOW! Usually if we have no snow it means cold temperatures. So -2 isn't that bad. One of the members of Homesteading Today who lives in North Dakota wrote how bad the winter was where she was. It sounded bad. So I am not going to complain!

I was able to leave for awhile and run to the store. It was such a pretty drive through the forest to town. I regretted that I did not bring my camera! There were more than a few areas where the wind over the last few days had knocked trees down and broke branches off.

Dark Shadow & Georgie Girl

I went outside to take pictures of the snow banks for tomorrow's Wordless Wednesday post and ended up taking these little girls' pictures. They were so cute and so interested in what I was doing. Ever since our neighbor Charlie has been riding by on the week-ends with his horses, they are VERY attentive to anything doing on the road! After all, his horses are geldings. Good thing they aren't stallions. I have a feeling these girls are going into heat soon if they aren't already.

Tawny hanging out in her spot in the sun!

Tawny has been banned from the barn for some reason. Why, I have no idea. As soon as the weather gets warmer, I am hoping to bring her back into it with the other girls. Dark Shadow is NOT the boss mare. But she really pushes Tawny around. I am going to find a way to stop that. If I yell at her about it from on the deck, Georgie Girl, who IS the boss mare, will stop whatever she is doing and go to where Dark Shadow is. Then she pushes Dark Shadow out of there and away from Tawny. She does things like that quite often. 

Dark Shadow

Dark Shadow is a Thoroughbred, though she has a bigger body, almost like a Quarter horse does. She is very aggressive, but the reason is that she was sort of neglected at the farm we got her from. For some reason they did not start training her for the track as they did all the others, including Georgie Girl. So she formed attachments to other horses and then they were separated. Over and over. So by the time we met her, she was like a stallion. In fact, she was harder to handle than the two stallions were. It wasn't long before she formed an attachment to my husband. She is a good girl, just needs some attention and work, which she doesn't get much of during the hard days of winter.

Copyright © 2011 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2011  Kathleen G. Lupole

Our Horses, Georgie Girl and Dark Shadow

Georgie Girl, Boss Mare

I love this little girl so much. I cannot explain to anyone how much this horse means to me. She is my pride and joy. She is an ex-racehorse, banned from the Finger Lakes track as she refused to race. She was the fastest in all the breezes and the track people thought she should have been a perfect racehorse. But on race day, she went over twice in the starting gate with the jockey (I am sure, he beat her for that one!). Then she would lag behind 50 horse lengths. I cleaned stalls to get her.

My brother Mickey on Dusty

I wanted a horse my whole life. Then when we grew up, Mickey, my brother, always had one. I lived where I couldn't have one. So I never really was around them too much. Then when Larry and I got together, he had grown up with horses, and worked around them now and then. When we moved out here, he started training and caring for horses at a local farm, where they raised Thoroughbreds for racing. He took me to work with him and I fell in love with the horses there.

The Farm Our Horses Were Born At

Georgie Girl, especially, won my heart. She would pace in circles in her stall. The stall gate was covered so she couldn't look out. She was not friendly at all. Very high strung. I just took a liking to her. She had been their darling. She was the perfect racehorse, even the people at the track thought so. She was the fastest in the breezes, no other horse could catch her! She did not want to be a racehorse. She would show them how fast she could go, but the day of the races, a few times, she went over in the starting gate. Then when she actually did race, she'd lag, way back. The jockey could beat her with his crop, she didn't care. One thing, I have learned about her, is that she likes to be your partner - not your slave. And she is very smart. She doesn't "give" to anyone easily.

Dark Shadow

At the barn where Georgie Girl lived, she and all the other racehorses were only allowed to be outside for about 15 minutes every day in a covered arena, while their stalls were being cleaned. They would race around and play. All of them got to be in there with another horse. Only Dark Shadow, who my husband ended up buying, was made to be alone in the arena. She could not stand it and would whinny at the top of her lungs and race full tilt around that arena like a crazy horse. She was never worked with or even had feet trimmed. Everyone was afraid of her. At that time, she was only 3 years old. When I first went there, I thought she was the stallion. She acted like one.

Dark Shadow

Larry made friends with her. He got on her and she went over twice with him. He doesn't get thrown off a horse normally, he usually goes down with them. If they rear up with someone on them, many times they will lose their balance and it'll cause them to go over sideways. He did manage to talk his boss into letting her go out in the pasture with the "wild horses" (as we called them). They were not wild (my Tawny was one of them), but horses that were not used for racing so they could go out on the 50 acres that was fenced on their hill. The first week Dark Shadow went out there, Sally, the lead mare (and my Tawny's sister) just ran her down for the whole week. Dark Shadow went into that little herd of 10 horses like gangbusters! She wanted to run, and Sally did not let up on her. By the end of the week, Dark Shadow was friends with Sally and pretty tamed down. That's how it is for a new horse joining a herd. They have rules!

Georgie Girl and Larry

When the owner offered to sell me Georgie I could not believe it. Then one day he came to me and told me since she is now my horse, I can let her out with the wild horses that are out all day, if I wanted. He warned me that she might get burdocks on her if she did though. Larry and I looked at each other for half a second then ran to her stall to get her! She walked along with Larry like she was a little girl going somewhere......or she thought he was making a mistake and she didn't want him to know!

Georgie and Dark Shadow

Larry led her out to the group of other horses waiting to go out for the day in the pasture. They all smelled her, as they might live on the same farm, even in the same barn.....but they did not know her as the racehorses are kept separate. So she just walked along with them in the group and they seem to have accepted her. I was a little worried about her as she was the newest member of the herd......and in the horse herd that means she was on the bottom. And she was not used to being with others in a group like that.

w

Georgie, Tawny and Dark Shadow

So a few days later, I saw Sally, the boss mare and she seemed to be pushing my Georgie! I did not like that but there was nothing I could do if I wanted her out in the pasture with the others. She had to learn to take care of herself. But I worried about her after that.A bout a week later, the wild horses gathered in the paddock in front of the trail to the pasture and did not go straight up it. Usually when that would happen, I would take a hold of Sally's halter and lead her and the rest would follow, as she was their leader. I took a hold of her, and led her......nobody followed! ???? I looked at the rest of them and didn't know what to think. Georgie looked at me, then walked straight up past me.....and the rest just fell into place behind her................ My worrying had been for nothing.....my Georgie Girl had taken over the herd! She was now their leader!

Copyright © 2008 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2008 Kathleen G. Lupole

Updated 2018