A horse to make you cry...

I usually wear my blinders when I go out to the DOA impound barn. I've been feeding "Arthur" now for a few months. He came in the very epitomy of equine neglect-he could have been used as a classroom display for an equine orthopedic class- except for the show clip. Every single vertebrae was visable. A total 1.

TOday he followed me around as I did my duties filling the trough, mucking, etc. He gave me a nudge and I mindlessly bagan to scratch him a bit. My hand came away with more than a little fur. It was a fist full of hair and I could not do anything but turn from the wad to look him in the big, round, huge(never noticed that before) eyes of his....Then something broke inside me.

A rage of anger first hit me that such a fine, dignified, well-mannered horse was HERE.....well-most of them are pretty decent after all....Even *if* no one saw fit to feed them.

So what? So a used up old horse winds up at the impound?

Outraged, and of course the single, solitary, person there (not too many volunteers believe it or not) I get a bucket of grooming items and go to town. No halter, no cross-ties. Just he and I in the middle of a paddock with his wild beeyotch of a mustang paddock mate looking on incredulously as I curried layer after layer of fur and dirt. He stood, greatfully motionless except to occasionally turn and look at me, or lean a little as if to say, "right there, just a little more please".....

I am still trying to steel myself.

So a soft brush on the face, move the forelock, and my God! I just burst into tears! The most gorgeous, dry, amazingly chiseled face of a well bred arabian was under there! I lost it. Most every horse out there had been SOMEONE's horse!!!!!!!!!!! I will never forget and may not *now* be able to return with my armor on to sheild me.....

This message was edited May 27, 2006 7:08 PM