It's Not A Pet, It's A Horse. And Other Lies

 Many, many, many years ago, when I was about 12 and lucky get my first horse, my father sat me down and sternly said, “This is, a horse, not a pet.”

I adored my Dad, but he didn’t know me at all. Actually he did, he and knew I wasn’t listening.

Fast forward to six years ago.

I was the proud owner of three horses. One was

Murphy and Dezi

ridable. The other two, Murphy and Dezi had one job:  they had to look glad to see me when I visited them weekly at their retirement farm. And brought 25 pounds of carrots.They handled this brilliantly. They would whinny and saunter up to me. It was enough.

I'd bought Murphy when he was 12 to be my show horse. Before he transitioned into a show hunter, he’d had a failed career in racing. At 18 he developed neurological issues that made him unsafe to ride, so I retired him.

Finding a place to park old horses isn’t as easy as it appears. The first place I found for Murphy was a disaster. The field was big, but the weeds were sparse and contrary to what was promised, the horses weren’t fed supplementary hay. Every time I drove away Murphy would  follow my car, running and screaming after me.  He lost almost 200 pounds in four months there. This was 13 years ago, and I’m still furious.

The next farm, however, was horse heaven. Big pastures. Shade trees. Food. And care.  Great care.

I eventually paid to build a three-sided shed for him to escape the elements, but it was worth every penny. Murphy made the transition into retirement with gusto. He was paired with an old mare, and they were a darling old couple.

I bought Dezi (who I showed as Babaloo) when Lucy had her first serious injury and was sidelined for almost a year. He was an old warrior- a European jumper who had been there and done that. I didn’t really know how old he was, but a German clinician saw his breeder’s brand and told me that style had been obsolete for about two decades. Draw your own conclusions.

I knew when I bought Dezi that he wasn’t going to be my riding horse for long; the vet had predicted a maximum of two years.  I rode him for three, and then he joined Murphy in the field. The old mare was long gone and while Dezi didn’t take to retirement with Murphy’s enthusiasm, he adjusted. Dezi became the field boss.

My equine herd is why, when I was forced to move from my (paid off) home in North Hollywood, I looked for horse property. I wanted, no, needed a place to keep my Boys where I could enjoy them daily, instead a few hours on the weekend.

With a little help from my friends, I found almost ¾ an acre (in Los Angeles, this IS horse property) in the western San Fernando Valley. It had a seven stall barn and an arena. I turned two of the stalls into in-and-outs with the arena as a paddock. (The other stalls are for hay and shavings storage. NOT horses.)

There was also a cute little house. I barely looked at it; this place was bought for the Boys and dogs.

They loved it. Retirement AND they got to see me all the time!  And most of the time, I was feeding them. Or giving them snacks. Jackpot!

Dezi was the king of the field. And the yard

.

No matter how much time you spend with your horses, when they are boarded, you don’t really know them. I had no idea how wily Dezi was. With a touch of sneaky. Almost immediately he learned how to breach every gate.

That first year, I’d wake up in the morning and regularly find the Boys waiting on my back porch.  Pissed that breakfast was late.

I invested in  chains and double end snaps for all the gates and teamed them with solar powered hot wire fences. That mostly worked to keep the Boys safely inside the paddock. But Dezi never stopped trying. If gates were left unchained, he was out.

By the time Murphy died, Christmas two years ago, Lucy had joined the Boys. But even my incredibly bossy mare, was no match for Dezi. He ruled the paddock with an iron hoof. He checked every pile of hay before deciding which one he’d eat. If he was napping, the others stood guard. Where he walked, they followed.

Dezi loved people and was very sweet. He’d follow me around the paddock when I was mucking the barn, just to hang out. (Or maybe to ]ensure I was doing a good job.) He loved being scratched and adored babies. When people brought infants to see him, he would carefully lean in and sniff them gently.

This summer was rough on Dez. It was brutally hot. There was a week that it reached 118 degrees. In an effort to keep the gang cool, I bought an industrial standing fan in addition to their stall fans.

They loved it. All three (Talen, my most recent retired show horse joined the herd last spring) would line up in front of it, their manes and tails blowing in the wind. They looked like an equine shampoo commercial.

Talen, a relative youngster at 13, barged in and took control.  Dezi didn’t give up easily; he always sported a nip or cut, but it wasn’t serious and Talen had bite marks as well. They figured it out.

Maybe because of the heat, or the competition, this summer Dezi suddenly got old. 

As recently as last spring he was a fat, shiny boy. But now no matter how much food I stuffed into him, his backbone, hips and ribs jutted out. But he still seemed pretty happy.

Three mornings ago when I went to feed breakfast Dezi was hobbling. He was unable to walk without considering each and every step. I poured pain meds into him and locked him in a stall, which made him miserable and didn’t ease his pain

.

It was time. He and I have been together for more than eleven years. He was my pet for eight years. 

It wasn’t enough.