Conversations

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Since the title of my blog is Conversations With Horses, today I thought I’d talk to a couple of horses. Fictional ones, of course, featured in my book Forewarning. They are based on ones I’ve known and hopefully will give you an insight into horses’ minds.

The first horse to appear in Forewarning is Paris, a brash adventurous type, who finds a gate unlatched and decides to explore. (Unfortunately, a young filly follows along.)

So Paris tell us about yourself.

“My real name is Harrbit’s Parisienne. I’m a beautiful dappled grey Anglo-Arab. That means I’m half Thoroughbred and half Arabian—horse royalty. I was bred for Three Day Eventing and I loved to jump, particularly in the show ring where people noticed and admired me. Something bad happened to me before I came to live with Kasey; I don’t like to talk about that. Kasey fixed me up but I don’t get to jump any more. I miss all the attention and fussing and special things associated with showing.

What do you do now?

I alternate between having foals–oh how I love my babies—and being a trail horse. Dancer and I make really nice foals and Kasey lets me keep them for six or seven months and then waits until the following year to breed me again. After my babies are weaned, I become her trail horse and ride the mountains with her. I love exploring new trails. I get enthralled and walk so fast other horses have a hard time keeping up. But I don’t like it when things change on familiar trails. I have to look very carefully to be sure that big branch or rock slide isn’t something to run from. Once in a while, I’ll play games with Kasey and pretend to be afraid when I’m really not. She usually figures it really quickly and stops my fun. That’s okay, I love her and always run to gate when she comes.

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Now I’m going to skip to the most important horse on ranch—Dancer, Kasey’s regal stallion.

“My name is Willow’s Sundancer and I am a chestnut Trakehner stallion. My breed developed in East Prussia in the 1700’s and were used as cavalry horses. It is the oldest of the European warmbloods. Like Paris, I was bred for Eventing too, but I also quite enjoy dressage. Kasey bought me as a yearling and trained me. We competed for a few years and I was very successful.  I had lots of admirers, which is why I am so popular as a breeding stallion. I have offspring all over the world,.

Now I have an even more important job—protecting the ranch. As a stallion, I must make sure my herd, which includes Kasey, is safe from danger. While I may romp and play, I never relax my vigil. I’m very aware of everything that goes on and ready to take action if necessary. Of course, I’m also quite interested in the ladies and wish I could live with the mare herd. Unfortunately, Kasey doesn’t agree. I definitely could do without the pesty geldings. They can be so ridiculous at times.

Hope you enjoyed meeting the horses. You can learn more about them and others on the ranch in my book FOREWARNING

If you have horses, what are they like? What kind of personality does your animal have?

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Grey horse: photo credit: *Chutor at 6 years via photopin (license)