I now have a horse, a registered Anglo-Arabian mare, 11 years old, 15.2 hh, owned by only one other person, her breeder, a woman. Her dam raced, and is registered at the Jockey Club. She comes from million dollar winning lineage.
I have been sick with bronchial pneumonia for over a week, and, in my first outing from the house in over a week, except for the doctor's office, I went to the livestock auction. Just to be in a different place, one that smelled of horses. I parked close, being unable to ambulate very far without gasping for breath and getting light headed. Slowly, I walked in the warm sun to the holding pens behind the sales arena building. Horses and people and the voices of both enveloped me like an old quilt. I leaned against a gate to rest. Then, I strolled the wide aisle between paddocks.
I saw a gelding that looked promising. He was sound, and fit, and healthy and unflappable. And I flapped him, slapping his loins, yanking on his cinch, pulling his tail, checking his teeth and hooves. He just took it. Hmm, maybe I'd see if he fetched much money... Then, I wandered to the next, and the next, and the next paddock.
I was suddenly wracked by a coughing spell, leaving me light headed and weak. Eventually, I moved on to the next pen, thinking I better go home and to bed pretty soon.
It was weird meeting this horse at the auction. She strained against her lead rope, pushing her head through other people who were looking at her, and tried to reach me. She kept sniffing my mouth, and then laid her forehead and soft nose along my body. Soothing, like she knew I was sick. She just 'held' me that way for a little while. Instead of going home, I made my way into the sales arena and sat down in the front of the audience.
She was brought in, and held herself with dignity and calm. Then, I coughed again. She turned her head in my direction, taking a step toward me before her rider took her the other way. But, still, she turned her head, watching me. A couple of times, she held my gaze, I am sure of it, and I am not starry-eyed that way. She kept her ears forward through it all, a good sign.
Throughout the bidding, I actually shook my head 'no' twice to indicate that I was not going to continue, but, next round, I found my hand up. I was strangely calm, too. Let me make this clear: I did NOT want a mare, I did NOT want a nongaited horse, I did NOT want an auction horse. Yet I ended up with one.
As I watched her move in the arena, smoothly, surely; side passing, backing, stopping abruptly, I thought about her color; 'she's like cinnamon, or paprika, or, I got it: copper!' Not the new shiny stuff, the weathered, been there/done that copper.
As I stood to go pay for her, I took one step and something caught my eye. It was a penny, lying nearby, dusty and with a little mud crowning Lincoln's head. It is now glued in her file, on the page written by her former owner, saying she is a 'good girl'.
Then came the work of bringing her home. My sister came to help. I could not have done it alone. I was too weak to even face the locks on the shop and the big sliding doors leading to my horse trailer back at home. But, we got her home uneventfully. She loaded right up. (That, any horse person will tell you, is worth at least a hundred dollars). Home to meet Sonny and Buddy, the retired old gentlemen geldings that live on my farm.
Even during the excitement of meeting the boys, she came back to check on me a couple times, then returned to act like a girl, such a squealy, fussy, prancey girl. Little squeals and paws of the front hoof.
I am not so much a girly girl. And now I have April Rainbow. Good god... Why can't her name be Calamity Jane Barbed Wire, for cryin' out loud? What the hell do I call her? Not April. The only April I know is a raging angry bull dyke. Not Rainbow; that is WAY too 'tie-dye and tofu meet the Care Bears' for me. I will give her a name with character, an Irish sounding name, and a name befitting the soggy valley in which we live. I shall call her Rainey.
Welcome home, Rainey.
God, I have a princess, and a redheaded one at that...
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