by caf. » Thu Nov 03, 2016 2:01 am
Username: overcaffienated.
Barn: Cavallo Combined Training
Registered name: N/A
Show name: Mistress Maladaptive
Call name: Mallory
Gender: Mare
Age: 4 yrs
Height: 17.2hh
Breed: unregistered warmblood
Discipline: eventing
Breeding fee: 453c
Story:
((this one's long, Syd - i spent hours planning it (two sketch and planning pages and one god-dang 1424-word scrapped draft later - for reference, i think this one tops at 1718, not counting notes). i've divided it into sections and posted it early so you have time to read it, since i won't have time to write for the rest of the weekend. i hope you enjoy it! also, i may make minor tweaks as i reread tomorrow, if that's okay? nothing plot-altering, just grammar fixes and the like and maybe removing some fluff to make it easier on you, aha))
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“You heading out with Dr. Kelsey today?”
I started, one hand on the door. I hadn’t realized my mother had crashed on the couch the night before while working on bills; hearing a disembodied voice while you’re leaving the house alone at 5:30 AM is actually quite scary scary. Mumbling a quiet affirmation, I cracked open the door, still gloomy from sleep. Lately I’d been tagging along with the local veterinarian on a paid internship in order to raise funds for the new barn; I always took the early shifts because they paid well. Supposedly today a family wanted us to come out and check out a wheezy filly at 6 - the little thing belonged to the daughter, who wanted to be there when the vet came. I trekked out to the front gate, awaiting the overloaded pickup that would scoop me up on the way to the family’s little farm.
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Dr. Kelsey was a gruff, hard-headed man; we didn’t get along terribly well. It didn’t matter; all I had to do was catch the more ornery horses and hold them in place, draw saline flushes, easy tasks. We both tried our best to flash our most pleasant smiles when our muck boots hit the gravel, glancing towards the shed where the filly was supposedly tied.
I gasped when I saw her. When I heard it was just a backyard breeding operation we were visiting I expected a traditional long-necked disaster of a horse that would never become more than a pasture pet. Perhaps I’m a little cynical, but I doubt anybody would expect the piece of horseflesh in the crossties.
She was a yearling, an unidentifiable warmblood with clean legs and good integrity of bone. Perhaps she wasn’t terribly well turned-out - she was still muddy, her coat untrimmed and her little knees marked up with scratches from rough-housing in the paddock. You could tell she was cared for, though; for once, a foal that actually had managed a decent body weight! The most striking thing about her, certainly, was her coat; a brilliant example of chimerism. Blood bay patches interrupted her light grey undercoat, making her resemble the sort of patchwork horse you see in children’s coloring books. I asked the parents what she was.
“Well, look at her, she’s a paint isn’t she?”
The rest of the exam was just as cringeworthy; it amazed me that their two horses seemed as well-kept as they were. The filly was sired by a thoroughbred racing stallion, born out of the schoolmaster mare grazing at the front of their farm. Despite their claims of hearing her wheezing, Dr. Kelsey couldn’t find a thing wrong with her. Not until her little benefactor spoke up, anyway.
“She gets all growly when she runs,” the little tyke chirped, her parents nodding in assent. Kelsey snorted.
“Well, you might just have a roarer* on your hands.”
Another cringeworthy conversation ensued that I won’t detail; in short, the father evidently believed that even though the sire was a known roarer, because the filly wasn’t a thoroughbred she couldn’t have the disease. It only took the doctor minutes to find the issue by scoping the filly, finding that the left arytenoid cartilage was spasmatic and nearly immobile. The family totally balked at the idea of surgery, but it became clear that for this filly it was going to be more than necessary for her quality of life. We left them scratching their heads, unable to stay due to a pressing appointment with a breeding barn. The little girl, oblivious to the predicament, was all over the little filly; that horse was a saint for not knocking her teeth in.
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When I arrived home my mother greeted me with her laptop in hand.
“Have you seen this warmblood filly that went up for sale today?,” she pressed. I glanced at her with mild annoyance.
“How would I have? I’ve been out since 6,” I retorted, taking a seat in a creaky kitchen chair. Judy sat down next to me, eagerly pushing the device towards me. I raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, so they’re selling that filly?” When she glanced at me in confusion, I elaborated: “Dr. Kelsey and I saw her earlier today, she’s a roarer. They can’t afford surgery, I guess.”
“Look at the price on her,” my mother swooned. My jaw dropped.
“Seriously? That’s outrageous, she’s worth like 6 times that!”
“Kasey, what do you think?”
“You’re serious?”
“If you are.”
“Yeah, why not? We can always flip her if things go awry.”
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Romero called me a few weeks after the filly arrived, saying he had a horse he could ship up to the States for me to compete with if I could. I chuckled, ready to refuse; even just shipping the horse up from Brazil would be outrageously expensive. I halted, though. Romero had some of the best trainers in the world at his side, as well as a ridiculously good vet. What if?
“Hold on, let me grab Judy,” I told him, knowing he’d tease me if I referred to her as my mother.
We discussed the prospect of sending our brand-new filly all the way to Brazil quickly; my mother told me to go ahead and send him her information, we could always back out later. I told him this and he agreed; he only had two weeks to find a rider for the horse, though, so he needed an answer soon. I sent him the filly’s file, hoping he’d see in her what I did.
I expected a stream of comments about her coat, but instead Romero started laughing hysterically, much to my confusion. It took him quite some time to compose himself.
“Oh my god you have a literal zombie horse - wheeze - listen to her oh my god Kasey,” he cackled. I’d gotten too used to the filly’s obstructed breathing already but he was right; the blood bay on top of the dull grey, the roaring, all of this made her resemble an undead foal. I cracked up too. Zombie filly.
Eventually, we worked out that I’d train his Brazilian warmblood in exchange for his breaking the filly. While she was down there she’d be operated on by the professional veterinarian, which I’d pay for. It was settled, then - two years of training, and we’d swap back.
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I groaned at the prospect. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I hate Halloween. If we’re being honest, I have a lot of traumatic memories related to the holiday, not to mention it’s just childish. I’ve spent the past four curled up under a blanket with cheap candy nursing my pride.
This year, however, we’d invited the barn kids to trick-or-treat as their own group, but the chaperone had backed out and nobody had volunteered to replace them. My mother, as much of a saint as she was, had to stay home and pass out candy. She suggested that I go out on horseback, since the roads around here are quiet and most of the horses hadn’t been hacked in quite some time.
Reluctantly I agreed, but the only horse that hadn’t been shown over the weekend that was old enough to ride and could be trusted not to fall asleep on the road was Mallory; the just-turned-four-year-old had returned from Brazil merely a month ago. Could she be trusted?
I decided I had enough of a death wish that I didn’t care anyway, so I went ahead and slapped some cheap zombie makeup on her and a black gown borrowed from one of the kids. Romero and his team had done a remarkable job with her; she was hot but incredibly obedient and respectful. We left the farm without incident, calm as a schoolmaster, the kids in a happy, scattered pack ahead of us.
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About 15 minutes into the ride Mallory stopped dead, her ears up and her nostrils wide. I figured she might’ve seen a kid in a sheet or something; I leaned forward and slowly patted her neck, loosening her reins so she could get a better look at whatever she saw. Out of nowhere she leapt into a full gallop; completely unseated, I fell back flat against the saddle before frantically trying to right myself, unable to recover my reins in the chaos.
Our victory lap didn’t last long at all; I’d just barely come to my senses when the mare screeched to a halt, throwing me out of the saddle briefly. I felt her withers between my legs before I instinctively fell back.
To my surprise, there stood the girl from the farm 2 and a half years earlier, looking up with amazement at the snorting animal above her. She squealed with happiness when recognition flashed in her eyes, leaping up to hug the mare’s nose. I couldn’t even react, I was panting too hard. But Mallory, oh my - I’ve never seen an animal look so glad in my life. It was by far the sweetest, most cliched reunion you’d ever seen; I started to wonder if I’d died and woken up in some cheesy kids’ horse movie.
I let the kid tag along with our gang for the night; the horse’s nose stayed glued to her back practically the entire time. Towards the end I managed to grab her parents and give them our card. They said they’d be coming to visit for sure, and perhaps they’d even let their daughter take lessons with us. Would I ever let her ride Mallory seriously? No, not until she was well older. But we have schoolhorses for that, and the filly seemed perfectly content to just be petted by her little admirer. It was near impossible to pry her away when it was time to return home; she spent the entire ride periodically calling out.
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I’ve never met a horse that attached to a human in my life; every time that kid shows up for lessons she comes bolting up to the fence line, shrieking like a banshee until she gets her mandatory petting. I went over the other day just to see the interaction. The girl giggled when I came up.
“She doesn’t growl anymore, huh?”
I laughed uncharacteristically. “Naw. Guess she grew out of her zombie phase.”
- Kasey Cavallo
*note - if you’d like to, Syd, you can make it a chance she’ll pass the disease to her foals, requiring surgery to fix it. up to you though, i’m not sure if you take these stories to be the horse’s true history or just fiction.
Last edited by
caf. on Sat Nov 05, 2016 3:31 pm, edited 2 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!
no one understands what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is. Unless you have it yourself.
