I have always loved horses, probably from the moment I took my first breath. And now that I have my own kiddo, it’s funny how everyone is always so different. He has come out absolutely loving any and all vehicles. Me, on the other hand, my youth was spent dreaming of horses and sometimes riding them.
I’m from big sky country, think eastern Saskatchewan or western Manitoba. My grandfather had moved his young family out west after graduating with his veterinary degree. I think at that time my mom, who is the first born, was a small child. The rest of the children were born out west. My grandpa in the early days of his practiced mainly focused on large animals. I can remember him telling me stories of being called out to help a birthing mare in a early spring snowstorm. Or him vaccinating herds of cattle. In fact that is what drove him out west, the fact that in small towns like Estevan (back in the mid 1950s) there were not a whole lot of veterinarians. So there was lots of room to grow and expand a business.
Turns out that’s just what he did and after vaccinating herds of cattle one summer he had saved up enough to put a deposit down on a building in town so he could transition to small animals. This all happened before I was born and by the time I became sentient he had been practising in town for years and almost everyone on the west side of town (who had pets) knew him.
But he never gave up his love of horses. He had a friend, someone I called Cowboy Bill, who had a herd of quarter horses just outside of town. Someone cowboy Bill had married into money and his family owned a bunch of land. Looking back, I wonder why my grandfather never bought more land, but maybe with four kids and his own practice he just couldn’t swing it. Or maybe he didn’t want to.
Anyways, I grew up going out with my grandpa to cowboy Bill’s land and his heard of horses. I ached to be out there more, but it was more of an occasional thing. It was a huge pasture with some shelter and a shed for all the tack. I can remember rolling up to his pasture with cowboy Bill already there, honking his horn to get his horses to come up to us. He was an older gentleman and an avid equestrian. So much so that his legs were bowed, like the belly of a quarter horse. He sort of walked with a different kind of gait too and he was always chewing on some tobacco.
He had a herd of mixed mares and gelding, most of them being part Quarter Horse. But lore would have it, the horse I ended up riding was a long distant cousin of Northern Dancer, the first Canadian racehorse to win the Kentucky Derby. So he was part Quarter and part Thoroughbred.
I’m going back home in a couple weeks, so I’ll see if I can dig up some old pictures of me on Dancer’s back. Until then stay tuned for more horse-girl thoughts and memories.