She also told us she was the first female accredited American Horse Shows judge. Her animals when we knew her (in her late seventies) were two Thoroughbreds, two Saddlebreds, and a retired New York City Police Department mount. He was her standard teacher for first-time riders. Unflappable, Pushbutton trained, and very big. Captain wouldn’t spook if Hell’s Angels raced down the street next to the riding ring, and probably not if one threw a Molotov cocktail.
Thene managed her stable with the help of three wards of the state from the mental health facility in a nearby town. They were women, ranging from "educable retarded" to "trainable." All were somewhat physically handicapped, one too much to work with the animals. One could read well enough to walk to the small supermarket across the street and buy groceries from a list. She did most of the cooking.
When our beloved Thoroughbred who replaced the pony proved to have melanoma and had to be put down, our misery struck Thene in her tender heart. She promised to help us find another horse. Since Flush had been purchased from a family whose daughter was off to college and for whom disposing of the animal was uppermost in their minds, we had paid a laughably low price for him, and that was all we could afford. We told Thene we could never pay for another horse as good as he had been.
"Nonsense," declared Thene. "It doesn’t cost any more to feed a good horse than a bad one. I have an idea of how to get you a good Saddlebred." That week, she took me to a farm where four rather sad animals (as most horses tend to look in February anyway) poked around in an overgrazed pasture. The owner was a contractor, and so he wasn’t present.
"See that little mare," Thene asked, pointing. "She’s got papers, her conformation is excellent, she’s young, which means she’ll shape up fast with good feeding. She’s just what you need. Besides, Mr. J___ is having trouble paying feed bills, and so he’s anxious to find her a good home. The nice big fellow is a stallion, half Saddlebred."
"But you said she was a yearling. She isn’t even trained to ride," I said. Thene brushed that objection aside by telling me Saddlers are easily trained, and she would help us. A couple of days later was a Saturday. My husband and I and our four-year-old daughter went to the farm to have a look at the animal we might be going to buy.
Mr. J____ led us to an old cow barn. The central concrete aisle stood several feet above the earth floor. It was chest-high to two horses that watched us as we approached down the aisle. One I knew from its color was not the mare Thene had shown me. Our daughter, who adored horses, took off down the aisle toward the broad blaze and blond mane of the larger animal and threw her arms around his muzzle to hug him. I knew this was a young stallion. I also knew that panic wouldn’t save anybody, and prayed he wouldn’t bite her in half. He closed his big brown eyes and pushed her gently with his nose.
Both the animals were pathetically undernourished. Even in heavy winter coats, bones showed in places even racehorses should not show them. My husband asked Mr. J____ what his price would be for the small, dark brown mare. He explained that he hadn’t been sure which animal we were interested in, and had brought both in for us to meet. He named the same absurd low price for each of them, with the proviso that he wouldn’t accept money for the mare until she was under saddle and proved sound. She had been injured as a foal. Though she showed no lameness then, she might when subjected to weight and training. If she proved sound, he would take our money at the end of the summer.
So — we bought two horses. As good as her word again, Thene taught us how to teach them. They were our pets and companions for 16 years. We bred the mare and sold her registered half-Arab offspring at a time when that cross was popular. And for the rest of our lives, we would recall Thene’s throwaway line. Of course, we knew the price of feed for a good horse or a poor one would be the same ... and for shoeing and vet bills, and on and on. We just hadn’t counted on such a vivid illustration of how right she was.
We decided that we could jettison "You get what you pay for," in favor of "it doesn’t cost any more to feed a good horse than a bad one."
Thene has been gone a long time now, but we’ve all retained the wisdom of looking at what you want with an eye to quality first.
©2013 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com
Photographs from Wikipedia
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