Favorites
When one has had horses for sixty years, it is almost impossible to pick only one as your favorite, but there are several who have held that title from time to time, and for different reasons, but if I were forced to pick just one, it would have to be my very first horse, a little silver dapple Shetland filly, affectionately named “Daffy.” My parents gave her to me when I was just a few months old and was just learning to speak and to walk. They called her “the dapple filly”, but I seemed to only be able to make it sound like “Daffy”, so Daffy it became. Mother even says that I learned to walk holding on to Daffy’s halter. As I grew older, Daffy was my best buddy, I learned to ride on her and also drove her to a cart until I was almost high school age. I was the youngest kid in our country neighborhood, but almost everyone in our area had horses and lots of time, we would all saddle up, pack a picnic lunch, and take off for the day during the summer. It was a wonderful time; parents did not have to worry about where we were, or what we were doing. We were all together, on our horses and having a great time until sundown, most days.
Once I rode Daffy over to my cousin’s house, and all the “big kids” were swimming in the tank that held water that the windmill in that west Texas area pumped. I had asked my parents if I could go swimming, too, and they told me no, which of course, I didn’t think was fair, not really worrying about the fact that I couldn’t swim and everyone else there was twice my age of seven at the time. I was sitting on the concrete edge of the tank, playing like I was going to hit everyone with my “quirt” (riding crop), when suddenly I lost my balance and fell in! It was much deeper than I was tall, and I came up spitting, and thankful that one of the “big kids” had the sense to grab me and help me out of the water. I rode home the couple of miles very slowly, hoping that my clothes, belt, and boots would be dry by the time I got home so that I wouldn’t have to explain that I really HADN’T gone swimming!
Demolition Dimitri
People used to ask me what my favorite horse when I was younger, and for a long time I didn’t have an answer and would just say "all of them." Then came Dimitri. When I was in fourth grade, my favorite movie was Anastasia. So when foaling season came around, I named one horse “Little America’s Tex Anastasia”, and another “Little America’s Xenon Dimitri”. Later on, my dad decided he wanted to geld Dimitri so I would have a good performance horse to show.
There is no other way to say it other than this horse rocks my world. We match perfectly. Always into something, big butts, and thick hair. I don’t think I ever noticed horses had their own personalities until he came along.
I once walked into his stall to find him with a five gallon bucket on his head. Somehow he had managed to unlatch the bucket from the wall (we usually have them either clipped or wired so they can’t be moved) after he had finished eating and get it stuck on his head.
When Dimitri turned three, we decided we’d teach him to drive. Dad thought he was a good driving prospect so he wanted him to be taught by a professional trainer, so we sent him to one. By our first show in January, the trainer thought Dimitri was ready to drive. When we went to the arena to watch the trainer warm him up, we saw that Dimitri was already throwing a fit, and the cart wasn’t even attached to him yet. He had all of the harness on and any time anyone would try to get him to go forward, he would stretch his front legs out and try to break his belly band. Then, when he failed at this, he would jump up and start throwing himself against the wall. Obviously I didn’t get to drive him at this show.
The next phase my dear, sweet Dimitri went into was the stop and back. At shows, when you go into the arena, you show at three different gaits: walk, trot, and working trot. For a good while, when it came time to walk, Dimitri would just stop. That’s all. He would just stop. No mater what I did, once he stopped, he would not go forward again. I could yell, slap his rear with the reins, use my whip, and nothing would work. The only reaction I would get would be him doing his old routine of stretching out to try to break the belly band. On two different occasions, I had to have either a judge or a ring steward come and pull him forward to get him going again. After that, he’d be fine! If I really ticked him off, then he would start backing and see, when Dimitri is mad and starts backing… He doesn’t stop until he hits something. So on a particularly bad day, he would start backing, I’d start yelling, and he would continue backing until we hit a wall or any solid object that could scare him into actually going forward for a change.
Dimitri is also talented in jumping. He has acquired the nickname, "Demolition Dimitri" from the staff of the shows for his talent of knocking jumps down. He is perfectly capable of jumping. He will easily go over any and every practice jump I take him over at home or before his class. But once he gets into that arena, it’s a whole other story. Once at a show in Conroe, he had a clean round (didn’t knock over any jumps) in Jumper so he went to the second round. In the second round, he realized his nickname was in jeopardy after the first round and proceeded to knock down every single jump after that. I’ve never heard more people say "You forgot one!" in my entire life.
It has actually gotten to the point where I’ll stand at the gate when I’m the next one to go in and Amanda, a trainer I’m good friends with, will come up to me and we’ll have an extensive conversation about what order Dimitri should knock the jumps over in and which ones would be most fun to completely rip apart.
A year later at AMHR (American Miniature Horse Registry) Nationals, I decided I would be brave and show Dimitri in Driving Obstacle while Dimitri decided he didn’t feel like showing in obstacle. When I came to a hoola hoop that I was supposed to pivot in with one wheel, he would not turn. Finally the judges blew the whistle to excuse me from that obstacle so I could move on to the next.
Dimitri continued to move throughout the course but then at the end, he had to walk over a tarp with water on top and giant, brightly colored blow up pool toys on each side. At this time, Dimitri decided that to make up for his not going over the tarp, he would begin pivoting like he had been asked to do earlier. I fought, slapped him with my reins and whip, yelled, begged, and pleaded for Dimitri to go forward. Finally, I just gave up. It was as simple as that: I gave up. After all, it was Dimitri I was dealing with. I then simply laid my hands down in my lap and sat in despair, sighing as my horse continued to drill his hole to China.
