Archives: 5-10-02, Wild Kingdom | 5-17-02, Part Two
Copyright, Doris Eraldi, 2002
updated weekly, usually on Friday
Blue Grows Up
There are few sights more pleasing than a feeling-good, full-of-it horse, a spirited equine who is moving around because he just plain enjoys it. One of those times when watching a horse buck and run with joy is even better, though, is when that colt is yours.
Blue went through a real ugly-duckling stage as a yearling and two year old – in fact I was despairing that he would ever grow into anything. He was accident prone, the other horses picked on him and he seemed to always be the one knocked into the fence or stumbling on the gopher mound. He was quiet-natured, and would stand and watch the others play or make some pitiful attempt himself and trip.
That was last year.
At three, Blue has grown into himself. We turn the herd out onto the hillside pasture during the day, and they all gallop through the gate in anticipation of the belly-deep grass. Blue runs with them, but he doesn't stop to eat. At full gallop, he circles the herd, up the steep slope then down, never tripping, never out of control. He throws in a few bucks, arching his back up and springing straight up as if jerked by a puppet-string, landing on his front legs and kicking his heels high over his head. He dodges to the left, to the right, sideways on the steep hill. He spies me watching from the bottom gate and comes careening down the hill, skidding to a stop and snorting as if making sure I am watching, before spinning and thundering back up to the grazing herd.
He's Bonnie's son, after all, and Bonnie is a horse who knows her body. She ran for the joy of it and still does, for a few minutes until her various bad joints start to ache. She would run up and face me, then rear and walk around on her hind legs while looking me in the eye. “I'm a strong, active horse!” she would say, “A fast horse! Don't mess with me!” If I had to pick one trait for Bonnie to pass along to her foals, it would be the awareness and pleasure that she takes in moving. I thought somehow Blue had missed that, had inherited Bonnie's large floppy ears instead (well, he did inherit her ears …).
Blue is the result of years of not-always patient waiting and hoping – over two years just getting Bonnie in foal, a year of gestation, three more years until now, when I finally get a glimpse of the horse. There's a few more years to go – the training, the seasoning, the competition, before I really know what I've got, but that colt leaving the herd at a dead run, leaping and bucking down the bank, sliding up to me at the gate and looking me in the eyes to be sure I SEE HIM – he's my horse, and boy-can-he-move. Now that's a horseman's way to start a day.
D.
The horses in the background are, from left, Bonnie, Blue and JD
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