Horse Bound

Introduction 

Once upon a time, I was a perfectly normal high school special education teacher. I had classes and students and goals and lesson plans, and all was right with the world. I was a horsewoman, but it was something just for my free time and an easy way to pick up extra cash when I needed it (and what horse owner doesn’t need it?) mucking stalls and giving lessons. 
In 1997 I lost my mind and bought Gallant Hope Farm. Since then, the place morphed from lesson and training barn to boarding farm to my own private bastion against the larger horse world. Now it’s just me and my personal horses with a single boarder who has been here since the first December we were on this place. By the time I retired from teaching school, I was ready for a major change in my life. I had horses. Lord knows I had horses! But not like this. Not in my backyard every day … and every night. The horses are my sickness, my sanity, and my source of humor. 
For instance, my big paint gelding, Zips Memory (a.k.a. Zips Money Pit, Doodlebug, and Get Off My Damn Foot!), was definitely giving me the stink eye this morning. I swear I saw it. He heard the vet’s truck pull up, and turned that evil eye on me, the one that says, “Oh, you think so, do you?” Naturally I allowed sanity to reign and opted to start the spring shots from the far end of the barn, with Zip up last. My vet is energetic, solid, and younger than I, with lots of experience with racehorses and such, and he learned long ago that my Zip holds no truck with the blue jumpsuits that many vets have adopted as safe-and-easy work attire. Zip can spot a jumpsuit at fifty yards. On this day, as the vet unfurled his lanky, shirt-sleeved frame from the truck’s cab, I reminded Zip that this is a fine thing to do on a sunny day, and waved a handful of remorse-cookies under his nose. 
While the vet and I went from stall to stall, talking politics, removing the horses’ blankets (I shoot them up early for all of the mosquito-borne diseases, so it was March and chilly as heck) for their annual school pictures for their Coggins tests (for Equine Infectious Anemia), and sticking them as we went, Zip regaled us with an assortment of tricks. My vet, his racetrack experience a fine teacher of patience, is an ace at ignoring Zip, which invariably results in escalation of effort on the gelding’s part. There was the stretching his front legs out under the stall guard (always makes the reserved and otherwise eloquent vet give a startled exclamatory grunt—“Uh!”—which is Zip’s version of an Oscar). That rolled into the sliding of the miniature horse’s stall door which is just within reach of Zip’s outstretched head, and the scratching of Zip’s mega butt on the stall guard till the vinyl panel looked like it was going to burst under the strain. 
The performance was capped by the piece de resistance move of slamming the mini’s stall door shut just as I tried to convince the little guy it was safe to go back inside for reblanketing. The fun never stops on Zip’s watch. 
Most people would probably have just thrown the needle at the big guy from across the barn aisle and called it done, but my awesomely patient vet and I have been working around Zip’s frizzy brain hair for some sixteen years, long enough to know that, when stomp comes to buck, he’s going to be the best-behaved of the herd—as long as the barn doors are closed. I’m confident, not stupid. An open door is sufficient invitation for a spin-and-romp up and down the aisle and in and out of the barn, greet-threatening the other horses one by one, dropping important stuff in the water bucket, and creating general unrest among the natives until boredom sets in and Zip parks himself in the crossties to await the obeisance of his minions—us. So, doors closed, Zip shook off his alter ego and strode from his lair to pose for the camera like the rock star he is—left side, right side, head-on—and stood without flinching for the shots and blood draw. Go figure, right? 
The process got me thinking about how many of us must be living with horses that make us want to pull our hair out. These are the ones that perturb us so badly that we find ourselves hiding behind the bedroom curtains, staring at them through the window and wondering how in hell we wound up in this predicament and whether a quick call to the local police might be in order. 
Me: Uh, can you send a car over here, pronto? 
State Trooper Dispatch: What’s the problem, ma’am? Bear attack? Intruder? Trespasser? Horse giving you the stink eye again? 
They know me at the State Police barracks, and I’d bet my number on the caller ID is enough to make them run a real quick survey on which newbie cop might be around who needs a good laugh. They can’t hide from me, but they don’t have to join hands with my lunacy. 
Thinking about it led to writing about it, and suddenly another book appeared to partner with It’s a Horse’s Life!, Horses in the Yard, and Horses Happen! This collection of brand-new essays tracing the exploits of the horses of Gallant Hope Farm and my thoughts on the subject, therefore, is for all horse-bound humans who are old enough to know better and have ever had, currently have, or probably will have a horse that drives them crazy. I’ve had my share. There was the paint mare, pregnant and foundered and right off the track. And there was the “gift horse” thoroughbred mare that was recently regifted to me. And of course, there’s the ever-popular “husband horse,” meant for my significant other but naturally winding up mine. If you have more than one such horse, Horse Bound: The View from the Top of Mount Manure is probably not enough medicine to make it all go away, so add gin and stir with ice. You won’t be able to read, but you won’t care. 
Joanne (a.k.a. Zips’s Mom 2)