Gift Horse

Have you ever done something you knew you shouldn’t do? My whole being was telling me to say no when I was offered a free Holsteiner colt. I knew I didn’t have the time to devote to a young horse, and I knew I didn’t have enough experience with horses under three years of age, but I took him anyway. He was beautiful, and his club foot could be and was repaired with a surgery that was very inexpensive, compared to what it should have cost for a horse of his breeding.

He was a real character. Mr. Personality. He was actually too smart for his own good and way too smart for my good. When he was being good he was perfect! But when he decided to do things his way, my 80-plus-year-old neighbor, Mr. Hubert Boner, used to watch from his porch and holler, “That horse has the devil in him!” With time, several unplanned dismounts, and more bruises than my body and ego could take, I came to agree with him.

As luck would have it, Boogie was accident prone. His curiosity got him into all kinds of trouble and none of it was cheap! By the time I found him a new home, that free horse had cost me $8,000 and a lot of heartache. Learning to listen to my heart and do the “next right thing” was a huge emotional and financial expenditure.

My dad has always encouraged people to do the right thing. When I was younger I wondered how people knew what that was. I’m not wondering anymore. That is where that saying “listen and learn” comes from!