My first pony had rockers.  We have pictures of me as a three year old mounted on my steed - cowboy hat on head, gun and holsters, leather-fringed vest and shirt, boots, and a guitar, for I was a singing cowgirl.

I've hypothesized that love of horses is genetic but won't deny some environmental influences.  Crusader Rabbit was an early hero mounted on his horse warring against the State of Texas to save its jack rabbit population.  Fury, Flicka, Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Sugar Foot, Wagon Trail and all the other western and horse stories flooded out television screen from infancy.  If reincarnation is true (and my personal theology doesn't support it), I think I am a direct descendant of Gheghis Khan, for I had intense emotional responses to riding across the steppe on rugged mongolian ponies and to sitting on a hill overlooking Khan's ancient captial of Kharahorum.

Whatever the reason, I loved horses from my earliest days.  Until I was 10 or 11, I would build Lincoln-log barns and corrals and have marble horse stampedes to the other end of my sloped bedroom floor.  Three times a year my father would take me to Hilltop Riding Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota, to ride.  My earliers photo on a horse was taken at age three in the Black Hills just before talking with Chief Not Afraid of Guns.  Our church camp had two spotted ponies, Nina and Beauty.  Punishment for inappropriate behavior was shoveling manure.  This, of course, increased by bad behavior exponentially.  Nothing at camp was as interesting as being at either end of a horse.

My father promised to buy me a pony when I reached age 10.  Well, 10 came and went without the appearance of a pony.  As we learned from the old Massey Tapes, 10 is a critical year: what we lack as a 10 year old is what we will crave the rest of our lives.  Hence, the horses and mule sitting in our pasture.  My husband blames my horse fixation on my father.  Dad finally came through when I used blackmail while in college to buy my first pony Eight Ball, named for the circle of black around his tail on an otherwise mostly white body.

I've learned a lot from each horse we have had.  From Eight Ball, whom I renamed Shenandoah, I learned it is never wise to trust too completely.  We were too poor for a saddle, so I rode my little round pony bare back.  He was always easy to catch because his philosophy was that he could always get rid of me when he was tired of me.  Again and again I would play my Charley brown to his Lucy, falling for his good behavior, trusting, relaxing, and immediately finding myself sitting on the ground.  A bad relationship?  No, just a challenging one, though when he was finally surrendered to dog food, I had a certain uncharitable sense of satisfaction.

Decreasing the Number of Horses on My Payroll

With the rising costs of everything - shoes, hay, vet, gas, life in general, I have to cut back.  Three horses and a mule stand in my soup line.  Ginger is my husband's quarter horse - she stays.  Missy, Molly, and Gitana are mine - one needs to stay, the others need new jobs.   At $16.50 a bale for grass hay and $90 for a pair of shoes, how can I keep on the payroll animals I don't need?

Missy is my faithful 23 year old paso fino mare, awesome trail horse who has carried me courageously all over the southwest.  Sadly, she can no longer do the hard work of mountain trail riding.

Molly and Gitana were purchased as possible replacements for Missy.  After extensive on-line research, I found Molly, a paso-gaited mule who had been imprinted at birth, raised and loved by a veterinarian, and started kindly and well.  She was first chosen as Missy's replacement, but then Gitana and another mare came my way.  A friend has 18 horses and needed to cut back fast - I bought two paso fino mares at ridiculously low prices and traded the highest quality mare for the training of the other, which I felt was better suited to trails.

Molly or Gitana?  Molly's long ears and off beat personality keep us laughing - everyone loves a clown.  Regrettably, I never noticed she had slightly crooked back legs that would keep her from being the heavy duty mountain mule I was looking for.  This was pointed out to me by an accomplished mule man when I was trying to find her a new home.  She also doesn't canter, having been discouraged from doing so as a gaited mule.

Gitana has been in training with a professional and is just at the point where i can begin riding her.  She does well on the trail and is brave and sound, a thoroughly adequate replacement for Missy.

So, Missy, my faithful but aged trail mare, and Molly Mule need a new job.  Will I succeed in finding them new homes?