by caf. » Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:32 am
Username: overcaffienated.
Barn: Cavallo Combined Training
Registered name: N/A
Show name: Lunar Exploration
Call name: Io
Gender: Stallion
Age: 4 yrs
Height: 15.0hh
Breed: Nokota
Discipline: Eventing
Stud fee: 410c
What are those dark spots on his coat? most likely corn marks! could be fungus spots i suppose, but those are temporary so i assume that's not what you're asking for!
Story: My daughter hadn’t moved from the fence for what felt like years, just staring, occasionally checking her phone or fidgeting lightly. At dinner an hour beforehand, she’d been completely distracted, constantly looking at the door, waiting ever so impatiently for an excuse to leave. She was older now, quieter, but I had still been able to pick up the childlike excitement in her eyes. Whenever she glanced at me now though, I saw that she was wearing a mask of anger and annoyance to cover up her disappointment. A nokota stallion was supposedly on its way, though it was now 45 minutes past the hour they’d specified and it seemed more hopeless every minute. Kasey, turning back to the gravel driveway, checked her phone once more before finally leaving the fence.
“You haven’t heard anything?” Her eyes searched mine for some answer she wasn’t seeing. When she found nothing she turned to the pasture where Soda, the only horse she considered truly hers at this point, grazed alone; perhaps she hoped the blue roan would have somehow appeared next to him, looking at her with the soft, curious eyes of a horse untouched by cruelty.
Both of us startled greatly when the sound of tires cracking gravel suddenly sounded behind us. Kasey lit up like a Christmas tree, striding towards the incoming vehicle with the pleasant, firm demeanor she always put on for business. The truck approaching us pulled a two-horse trailer behind it; I spotted a grey, curious nose sniffing the air through the small window.
After a quick exchange, Kasey directed the truck to the isolation paddock near Soda. Surprisingly, she elected to stay back from the unloading; ‘the BLM officials probably know him better,’ she stated. I watched carefully as the two men opened up the trailer, slowly revealing the stallion to the evening sunlight.
Admittedly, he wasn’t a gorgeous sight at first, but the light in Kasey’s eyes gave away his potential. Blue roan in color and sturdy, the creature stood totally motionless at the bottom of the trailer ramp, seemingly overwhelmed by his surroundings. It took several firm pulls on his lead rope, attached clumsily, to set him into motion. Only when the gate was hurriedly closed behind him did Kasey begin to approach the pasture, ignoring Soda’s frantic whinnies to the newcomer as he pranced along the fenceline. He looked at her with wide, somewhat scared eyes, clearly confused as to why he’d been moved from the holding pen he’d been in for almost a year.
Quietly, my daughter thanked the delivery men and sent them on their way; probably to take the paint mare to whatever client they had next. The blue stallion whinnied after his trailering mate as the truck drove away, momentarily forgetting about the human slowly approaching the fence. Kasey leaned against the fence opposite the one her new mount pranced along, observing, calculating a way in which to properly introduce herself. I saw her lips moving; I couldn’t tell whether she was speaking to the nokota or to herself.
Finally the stallion seemed to give up on bringing back the mare, trotting around the pasture in frustration and worry. As he passed by Kasey he screeched to a halt, his ears pricked towards her in total alertness. Even though I couldn’t hear her, I could see her smile, the little whispered words of awe at his beauty. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand her fondness for the wild ones, but it’s such a beautiful thing to see, her love of the challenge of an untamed, untouched beast, her canvas on which she can create whatever she wants.
She stood there well into the night; after watching her for a few hours, I left for the house. After all these years Kasey knew exactly what she was doing; I had no fear that she would do something wrong to this horse. When I returned to check up, I saw something interesting but strangely magical.
Kasey had removed her jacket, had tied it to the fence, and was sitting on the ground, simply watching the beast in a completely nonthreatening manner. The stallion, dearest thing, had his nose buried in the jacket, sniffing curiously at the new scent. I noticed, though, that Kasey wasn’t still; whenever she felt the stallion was comfortable, she picked up her body and softly moved closer, settling near the fence. After about fifteen minutes of constant adjustment, her knee touched the fence; I saw a look of pride written all over her face when the stud blew at her curiously before grazing again, having decided the jacket was interesting but not threatening at all. The human, however, he watched warily, open but cautious. In slow motion, Kasey leaned forward and rested her forearm on the lowest fence post.
The stallion froze, a mouthful of grass hanging from his jaw. Kasey didn’t say a word, didn’t move a muscle, waiting with bated breath for any sign of acceptance from the nokota. Gently, unceremoniously, the stallion inched forward, blew a hot breath all over her arm, and then returned to grazing as though he found nothing unusual about the situation. Kasey beamed so brightly she might as well have won the Rolex Kentucky.
“Never washing that arm again, are you?,” I teased her when she returned. She chuckled softly, still distracted by all of the possibilities she had with this new stallion. This stallion would be the first feral horse she tamed herself for the RVFHA, the foundation on which she built her programs. For once it looked as though my daughter was dreaming to herself; I saw no cynicism in her eyes.
That’s why I said yes when she told me she wanted to breed feral horses.
-Judy Cavallo
Last edited by
caf. on Wed Oct 05, 2016 4:43 am, edited 3 times in total.
caf - they/them - bi
equestrian - vocalist - student
mostly i hang around here for
RVEC nowadays, though i
roleplay on occasion. chat
with me about horses, music,
math, science, or...anything!
