Legend, the Horse with the Problem

Legend, the Horse with the Problem
Copyright Ken Harris 2009

If Sheba was The Horse with The History but no one knew what it was, Legend was The Horse with The Problem that everyone knew about. She was antisocial. In spades, vulnerable, doubled and re-doubled.

There is some sort of madness that drives horse owners to accumulate more horses than they need. The Heyser family had one person in the family who rode, Joanne. It stood to reason that they needed two horses.

That was where Legend came into the picture. Joanne’s parents, Sid and Esther Heyser, decided that it would be a good thing to get their daughter a colt. It would keep her out of trouble and give her something to do after school besides think about boys. They could learn about horse training together.

A little vocabulary here before we go on. All horse-babies are foals. A foal is either a colt (male) or a filly (female). At some time early in a colt’s career, its owner decides whether he will ever be used for stud purposes. If not, then his testicles are neither useful nor decorative and are therefore removed. And that’s how colts become geldings. Otherwise, they remain horses until they are actively put to stud, at which time they become stallions. Stallions are chock-a-block full of hormones and it’s not safe to take liberties with them. Fillies remain so until around four, at which time they become mares.

Joanne’s parents “commissioned” a foal by an Arab stallion named Khazel out of a grade mare named Lady. “Grade” means “mixed-blood.” She was half Arab, half American Saddle Bred. There was nothing grade about Khazel, though. He was by Abu Farwa out of Kharafia. We are not just talking blue blood here, folks; Abu Farwa bled turquoise, azure, cobalt, Prussian, you name it, it was blue. Lineage doesn’t make much difference to a horse, but to the horse’s owner the longer the pedigree, the better.

Louie and Nellie Goldfarb, the husband and wife couple managing the ranch where Legend was born, were in the midst of a domestic dispute that eventually led to their divorce. Louie didn’t like Arab horses, he didn’t like the ranch and he didn’t like Nellie. Not only that, Louie didn’t apparently see much virtue in work. According to what Joanne told me, Louie was supposed to feed the colts, and make sure they were halter broken and semi-civilized. Louie fed, and that was it. Nellie worked off the ranch as many ranch people, maybe even most of them, have to do. She caught up with her ranch work in her off hours.

Eventually, when Joanne decided to work with Legend a little bit, she found a filly untouched by human hands. She couldn't lead the foal, couldn't even get near her. She brought in a trainer who halter broke the filly in one hour. It was an intense hour, but the deed was done.

It became apparent that Louie wasn’t doing his job. There’s nothing a person who’s not doing their job hates more than having people know about it. So Louie decided that he would prove that this filly, Legend, had been ruined by the trainer who had spent an hour halter breaking her. Louie didn’t feed her. He threw things at her. He saw to it that Legend developed a genuinely bad attitude.

When Joanne picked her up to take her home she was stunted and had a pot belly. And she was very antisocial. She tried to bite and kick people and sometimes succeeded. She motivated Joanne’s brother, Fritz, to abandon the corral by leaping over the top rail. He later always claimed that the principal thing he admired about the French was that they ate horses.

Come to think of it, Joanne’s sister Audrey almost suffered a similar fate. Neither of them would willingly go out and try to do something with Legend. Even Joanne felt the force of her hooves and it became apparent that this girl who had never trained a horse was not going to succeed with this horse who had never been trained.

Another trainer “green broke” the filly so that she could at least begin her Horse 101 lessons. It fell to Joanne and Sheba to educate Legend further.

Sheba was outright mean to Legend and put up with no crap whatever. The filly learned her lessons or paid with her hide. But when turned into pasture, Sheba put Legend into an open corral. Then, while she slept, Sheba stood guard at the front gate, her front legs astraddle the sleeping filly, and protected the filly from other horses with hoof and tooth. Sheba could brutalize Legend, but nobody else better try.

When I first started hanging out with Joanne, she considered it her duty to teach me to ride. But I also heard all these stories about Legend, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to even be in the same county with her. Not to worry, said she. She would ride Legend, and I would get to ride Sheba. It would be like riding a lawn chair.