This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have a great horse memory story for you. When I was in college my mother bought me a Quarter Horse yearling gelding, he was a grey, but of course as a yearling was almost black. So I called him Blackie.
When Blackie was 2 years old he had purpura hemorraghica and almost died. For weeks I went to the barn before and after school, to wrap his legs, hand feed him and encourage him to live. Blackie and I became very close friends. It was so difficult and painful for him to move after the skin sloughed off his legs that we developed a game to try to make him move. I would touch him and back up a step and love him up when he moved toward me. He got better and better at the tag game until finally we could go to the arena and play tag day after day as he improved. After a while, I could race, double back, stop on a dime and Blackie was right there with me. He knew the "game." Well, Blackie recovered after a long while, and eventually went on to become a very well-known team roping horse. He went to the World Show and was 5th, had scads of points and was an all-around great guy. Unfortuately when Blackie was about 17, I got divorced from my horse trainer husband. I could not take Blackie with me, I had two small children, a business to move etc. So Blackie stayed on the farm with my ex-husband. He continued to teach beginners to rope and when he was in his mid-twenties he went to live at a cattleman friend of the family. Now I am sure this man did not intend to abuse Blackie, but his molars were gone, he had to fight cattle for food and became extremely thin. My ex got him back and was sick at heart that Blackie had gotten in such bad shape, and frankly thought he was going to die. I had gotten a horse of my own since the divorce, and my ex asked if I would like to take Blackie. I jumped at the chance. A few days later he was delivered to the boarding barn I was at. The barn manager met me at the door and said "Don't get your hopes up, he doesn't look good, I am not sure he is going to make it." I cried when I saw him. Normally around 1150 lbs. he could not have weighed 800 lbs. He looked like skin draped over a skeleton. We changed his feed, worked on his teeth, wormed and rewormed him and after a day or two he was less wobbly. I took him into the arena to try to encourage him to walk. But all he would do was stand with his head down and a glazed look in his eye. Suddenly a thought occurred to me. I touched his shoulder and said, "Tag" and stepped back a step. His eyes lit up and he stumbled toward me. I tagged him again and ran back a few steps. Steadily he began to "chase" me around the arena. I would stop and hug him and let him rest, and then he would be ready to play again. Blackie and I played tag every day after that. Over the next months he gained 250 lbs. He eventually felt good enough that I could ride him. Our veterinarian said giving him a purpose in life was the best thing I could do for him. Blackie lived to be 31, he died one year ago. It had been 26 years from the time we played tag when he was a sick 2 yr old. till the time we played when he was a sick 28 yr old. But there is no question in my mind or the mind of the others who watched us that he remembered the "game." Janice Lee Little Farm Fjords Valley, Nebraska
