The "Free" Ponies

Years ago in the '80s, when my kids were 12, 9, 8 and 7, I saw an ad in the paper for 2 "free" ponies with a cart and harness. I called and told my husband that I was going to go and 'look at them'. He said okay, but he forgot to say, "Don't bring them home with you."

I took my old Dodge pickup with the tall, canopy on it and went to see those ponies. Little Girl was a chocolate colored Shetland and I was told that she was 28 years old. These people had owned her for most of her life and Little Fella was her 9-year old son. His papa was Welsh and he was a little taller than his mom and a gray.

They seemed like very nice and personable ponies so I backed the pickup up to the retaining bank around the pond. The man watched as I loaded them in and shut the door. He helped me balance the cart on the tailgate and tie it on. There was just barely room for the humans in the cab by the time we got through loading all the stuff that went with these ponies. The drive home took about an hour because I didn't want to hurt the ponies.

That night when my husband got home he asked me what they were like. I told him to go look out in the back yard. When I got 'the look' I said, "Well, you didn't say I couldn't bring them home!" At least they fit nicely in our backyard until we made arrangements to care-take the field across the road. We also had goats, chickens and rabbits so it wasn't like they were the only animals in the backyard and it was a half-acre backyard!

As I think back now, what I knew about horses/ponies was like comparing a thimble full of water with the 500-gallon watering tank out on the range! I just treated them like big goats because that is what I knew. They seemed to survive until I had scoured the library and read all the related books I could. My kids and I had a lot of fun with them for the year and a half that we owned them.

Little Girl would get a little cranky and would not go or turn for the kids when they rode her. Every now and then I would get on her and ride her around for a few minutes. She would be just fine and would be good for the kids for about a week before they would come and tell me she was not going again. She really didn't get ridden a lot because she was so old.

Now, our main concern was Little Fella because he was younger and stronger. It only took me a few days to figure out how to put the harness on and hook up the cart. I went to the feed store and bought one of those slow moving vehicle signs and tied it on the back of the cart. We then just got in and off we went up the road to my friend's house a mile away. We then gave all her kids and the neighbor kids rides. This went on for about 3 months before I decided to go back out and tell those wonderful people how well they were doing and to thank them again.

You should have seen the look of shock they had on their faces as they said, "Oh, we forgot to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"Little Girl is the only one we put on the cart! The only time we tried putting Little Fella on the cart he spooked and ran away with it. It was broken and we had to have it welded back together. That was about 4 years ago!"

"Hum, he acted like he knew what to do! We have been going up and down the road about 3 times a week with traffic passing and everything. We haven't had anything go wrong at all."

"Well, I'll be darned!"

Little Fella did have one bad habit that was not pleasant. He would cow kick every once in a while. One day after several months of dodging the kicks, my husband was dressed to go to town. When he went to town he always wore his cowboy boots. He was coming back in from the backyard and stopped to pet Little Fella. As my husband started to walk around behind, I heard a kerwhack and " $%#^*#%$*&^* ". He then proceeded to kick Little Fella back. Kerwhack! Right in the thigh. It sure did startled Little Fella and he kind of limped for several steps. You know, Little Fella never kicked again.

That was the way it went the whole time with these guys. They were just way too cool and I was real sad when they started developing the land across the road. We decided that we couldn't keep them just in the back yard and found them a new home with a lot of other horses.

I recently ran into the lady who took them and asked if she still had Little Fella. She said that a family she knows still has him but they live a 4-hour round-trip away. I think now after writing this story, I want to take the time to go see him.

Happy trails,
Trail Riding Sweetheart