While I worked as the horse program manager at the Idaho Youth Ranch (a residential detention/treatment program for troubled kids), I got a call from a lawyer in Los Angeles. He had a couple of horses that he wanted to donate to our program. Since they were pretty well bred quarter horses and stabled near Sun Valley, Idaho (only about two hours away) I took him up on the offer.
The next Saturday I headed to Sun Valley to pick up the horses (he was flying up from LA that morning). He gave me directions and said you could see his cabin on the river for a mile or more before you got there. Well I could see a building but it was too big for a cabin. It was three stories high and looked to be about 5,000 sq ft. But that was the place. He met me in the yard and asked me to come in as he had something to show me.
He took me into his race horse trophy room. There were glass cases along two walls containing horse blankets, silver cups and trophies, newspaper clippings and photos. At the desk were two photo albums containing win pictures of the racehorses he had owned. He had me sit down and he showed me the pictures and talked about each horse (this took about two hours). I asked several times about the horses he said he wanted to donate and he kept saying he was waiting for someone and we'd load them as soon as he got there. When we finished with the photo albums he took me into his "great room". I understood why he needed a three story "cabin". The South wall was all glass and he had seven Alaskan Native Totem Poles in the room. Three looked new as they had fresh paint and unblemished wood. Three looked older- they had cracked wood and faded, peeling paint. All of them were over twenty feet tall. The last one was massive- over 4 ft in diameter, but only about 12 ft tall. It had no paint on it at all and looked to be very old by the condition of the weathered wood. A very impressive display.
Finally his friend showed up. Now these two were a real pair. The lawyer was very short- about 5'2" or 5'3" and 250 -280 lbs while his friend was over 6' and weighed less than 170. Both were over 60 years old and while I was there, both constantly had a drink in their hands. His friend asked if the little round lawyer had told me he was a great horseman. When I nodded yes he started yelling, “It’s not true. It’s all a bunch of BS”. Then they both started to tell a story at the same time about the lawyer falling off an old horse three years before and breaking his arm. His friend finished by saying the lawyer hadn’t been back to the barn since.
The next Saturday I headed to Sun Valley to pick up the horses (he was flying up from LA that morning). He gave me directions and said you could see his cabin on the river for a mile or more before you got there. Well I could see a building but it was too big for a cabin. It was three stories high and looked to be about 5,000 sq ft. But that was the place. He met me in the yard and asked me to come in as he had something to show me.
He took me into his race horse trophy room. There were glass cases along two walls containing horse blankets, silver cups and trophies, newspaper clippings and photos. At the desk were two photo albums containing win pictures of the racehorses he had owned. He had me sit down and he showed me the pictures and talked about each horse (this took about two hours). I asked several times about the horses he said he wanted to donate and he kept saying he was waiting for someone and we'd load them as soon as he got there. When we finished with the photo albums he took me into his "great room". I understood why he needed a three story "cabin". The South wall was all glass and he had seven Alaskan Native Totem Poles in the room. Three looked new as they had fresh paint and unblemished wood. Three looked older- they had cracked wood and faded, peeling paint. All of them were over twenty feet tall. The last one was massive- over 4 ft in diameter, but only about 12 ft tall. It had no paint on it at all and looked to be very old by the condition of the weathered wood. A very impressive display.
Finally his friend showed up. Now these two were a real pair. The lawyer was very short- about 5'2" or 5'3" and 250 -280 lbs while his friend was over 6' and weighed less than 170. Both were over 60 years old and while I was there, both constantly had a drink in their hands. His friend asked if the little round lawyer had told me he was a great horseman. When I nodded yes he started yelling, “It’s not true. It’s all a bunch of BS”. Then they both started to tell a story at the same time about the lawyer falling off an old horse three years before and breaking his arm. His friend finished by saying the lawyer hadn’t been back to the barn since.
It was about a half mile drive to the barn. In a small pen next to the barn were two very nice looking black horses. A three year old filly and her full sibling- a two year old colt. The lawyer gave me their papers and they had impressive breeding. I asked about their training and he said, “They have never been touched!” Then he said to back up to the gate and he would run them into the trailer. I thought, “This I got to see!”
The lawyer set his drink on the top of a corral post and picked up a natural horseman carrot stick. His friend commented on the cost of the stick. “That’s a fifty dollar stick. FIFTY DOLLARS. You could find a better stick laying on the ground” etc.
The filly was curious and looked into the open end of the trailer. The lawyer snuck up behind her and gave her a good whack on the butt with his stick. She jumped forward then rolled back over her hocks away from the trailer- right over the lawyer. Knocked him flat. He jumped up cussing and ran after the horses. He got another whack or two on each of them but didn’t get either one close to the trailer. He really raised the dust for about a minute and then leaned against the fence and started sucking wind. When I was reasonably sure he was not having a heart attack I said, “While you get your breath back why don’t we see what this filly is about. It looked like she might want to face up”. I sent her away by tossing the end of my halter’s lead rope near her and sure enough she looped around and faced up. I did it a couple more times and she faced up only three feet from me, I backed up and she hooked up and followed. I rubbed her face and slipped the halter on. I asked her to step to the side, and although her eyes got big, she did as I asked her. I stepped her to the other side. All was good. But now the lawyer was getting his wind back and started fidgeting with his stick. The filly moved forward- since it was in the direction of the trailer I walked along with her. I stepped in the trailer, the filly saw the lawyer coming with his stick and she stepped right in with me.
The colt was not in the pen, I hadn’t noticed where he went. But there was a stall in the barn and he was hiding in there. The lawyer flushed him out and the colt started calling for the filly. She answered from the trailer. He ran up to the gate and looked in. The lawyer snuck up behind him. I thought, “Some people never learn.” And sure enough the lawyer whacked the colt on the butt. But some people do learn. He was able to get out of the colt’s way. When the colt ran by him he smacked him a good one right across the forehead. The colt headed back to the stall.
I got to the stall door before the lawyer and had to actually block the opening with my body to keep him from running into the stall and using his stick on the colt. I reminded him the filly did well when we backed off and let her think. “Let’s just wait a minute and see what the colt is about.” He stood in the door and I walked into the stall and just stood in the middle of it. The colt was nervous but not aggressive or mean. With his head down in the corner he was just trying to hide. I moved him around a little by gently shaking my leadrope. Finally he was standing along one wall and let me approach his shoulder. He had a welt across his butt and his eye was running tears. His eyelids were “spazing out”. The lawyer had hit him in the eye when he had run past.
I had a tassel on the end of my rope and I stretched my arm way out and stroked him with the tassel. His skin flinched all over were ever I touched him. After a minute of that he let me touch him with my hand- then the flinching started all over again. He ran around me and towards the door. The lawyer started yelling, cussing and waving the stick. The colt continued around the stall and back to where he was before. I sweet talked him and rubbed him (from an arms length away) and he tolerated it pretty well. I moved a step closer and he ran around me towards the door again. The lawyer smacked him with the stick again and the colt ran around the stall and back to me again. The lawyer was running out of patience and wanted to run him out of the stall. I stood there with one arm pointed to the lawyer telling him to back off and the other arm pointed to the colt trying to hold him there. The lawyer finally quieted down and I stood up straight. The colt sidepassed a step closer. I knew then that I was making progress. I leaned over next to the colt’s ear and whispered, “Don’t go over there. The little fat man is crazy!” I swear that the colt understood! He started licking his lips and chewing. It took another few minutes to get the halter on and get him led out of the stall. Once outside the colt reacted to the lawyer and his stick by rearing up and pawing the air. I pulled him down and he went right back up. I moved to the side and tried to pull him down. He threw all his weight away from me. I pitched slack in the lead rope and he fell in a heap. When the colt got up he almost looked embarrassed. Stood by me for a minute and then moved with me to the trailer. He looked in at the filly and didn’t know if he wanted to step in. But here came the crazy lawyer with his stick so the colt jumped in.
Both the old guys started saying how impressed they were with the way I handled the horses. They said I was a great horseman and a real horse whisperer. Their congratulations might of meant something to me if they hadn’t been so drunk or if they knew anything about horses. Besides, I couldn’t have done it without the crazy drunk lawyer and his natural horseman stick.
They filly broke out real nice. She was a sweetheart. By six months some of the more experienced kids at the youth ranch were riding her.
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