I can relate to the satisfaction of starting your own horse. I’ve started, or help start about 10 horses. The following is a story about two horses my husband and I started ourselves. We’ve ridden them since they were two-year olds and now both horses are five. This incident occured about a year ago.

Both Cody and Cricket are smart, athletic 4 year-old quarter horses. I’ve read a sense of humor is an indicator of intelligence. With this in mind, Cody definitely has a sense of humor as he is the one to initiate games with our other horses. One of his many games is to defend a favorite rolling spot in the sand. As one horse after another comes near, he chases them off and then returns to his post, guarding it as if it is valuable, even though an acre of warm sand surrounds the area. On the other hand, Cricket’s intelligence is of the mischievous type. She is the one who carefully watches humans navigate horse enclosures and then uses these observations to open gates and take down electric fences gingerly with her dexterous lips.

Cody does not like Cricket. Maybe because she uses her mother, the head mare, as a shield during feeding times to out rank and out maneuver Cody and the other herd companions. Therefore, it was not a total surprise the day Cody put Cricket in her place, literally!

After bringing our horses in from the pasture, my husband and I closed the gate to keep them all in temporarily until we haltered our mounts for the day. I grabbed my bay filly, Cricket, and my husband caught his palomino gelding, Cody. We put them in a round corral while we let the other horses out to the lower river pasture and finished getting our tack together.

As the other horses headed up the hill and eventually out of sight, Cody and Cricket paced and called, hugging the side of the round corral closest to their exiting friends. Within less than a minute, Cody, irritated by Cricket “in his space”, chased her to the other side of the round corral. As she trotted out and then tried to maneuver back to her original spot, Cody lunged at her to block her movement. She quickly rolled back on her hindquarters and turned the opposite direction. Cody lunged at her again. Cricket rolled back in the opposite direction. Eventually, Cody stood in the middle of the round corral. As he faced Cricket, he took one step on his forehand to change her direction one way and then the other. Within four alternating steps on the forehand, Cricket stood as still as a marble statue!

Satisfied with his work, Cody walked over to his original post, the corral panel closest to where his buddies left. Cricket stood dead still on the opposite side until I came and haltered her. As I tied the knot on her rope halter, I imagined Cody felt good to finally have the opportunity (no head mare mom to block for her) to put his bratty little sis in her place!