Willow's Story---Part Two

So Willow (or “Whoey”---don’t ask---as he was known then) arrives complete with broken halter---not the best calling card---at Saddlebred Rescue, fresh from the sale. SBR’s philosophy is to try a horse as quickly as possible, intentionally throwing them from one radical situation---the sale---to another---a light workout in a busy indoor arena. This way you pretty much know how much a horse will rise to an unsettling occasion. What’s surprising is how quickly these horses tend to settle, and while there’s always bug-eyes and antenna-ears, horses that haven’t been ridden sometimes in decades accept the new job asked of them amazingly well. The folks at SBR are very kind and excellent horsemen and women, and all of this is accomplished quietly and with lots of pats and gentleness. The point is to see what the horse’s potential for good---or bad---behavior is. You can see how a horse would have every excuse for a complete meltdown but rarely does one fail. Almost never.

 

So Willow was pretty calm, and they estimated his age to be more like four or five, saddled him without incident and put someone up on his back.  The evaluation read, “good mind, but green as grass that has just been planted.”  So, really, really green, but very  accommodating.  That caught my eye right there, sounding like the kind of temperament I like.  And back then, green didn’t really phase me either, as long as the mind was there.  About this time Willow’s gait abnormality was noticed and he kind of wound up on the back burner for a while, there being so many totally sound horses needing work.  Eventually, he did go to a volunteer professional to be worked a bit and she put a handful of successful rides on him.  This is about the time his breeder happened to see him on SBR’s website---to her horror---and was able to fill in a good bit of his background, and when I discovered that SBR’s first trial of him was in all probability the first time he was saddled, let alone backed.  That really made me happy, and after thinking it over, along with my future goals for riding and having his hocks and stifles xrayed, I sent for him.