The Yellow Pony

Chapter 1

It’s A Big World

I was born at a large farm in a place called Oklahoma on a bright and sunny, breezy day in late spring.

I made my first friends there and I learned what The Herd was. I remember the bright smell of grass and the green, sappy smell of budding flowers and fruity plants. The grass was long and waved in the breeze and the earth smelled deep and rich. It was green as far as I could see. The sky was a bright, happy blue. The wind carried the scent of nearby horses and the distant smell of automobile exhaust. There was also an exciting scent of something I would learn later that night, from the safety of the stable, was rain and thunder. I learned that grass was food. Rain meant water and the herd meant friends and safety.

I can remember this place exactly because horses have excellent memories.

But for some reason I don’t remember being born. It just seemed one day that the whole wide world emerged in a kaleidoscope of smells, sounds and colors.

The first thing that is etched in my mind is the scent and sound of my horse mother. Her horse-name was Moonbeam. Her coat was patterned like the glowing full moon in the night sky.

“Stay back, stay near me,” she nickered. She placed her body between me and an approaching mare and foal. A large bay-roan mare named Patina with her own dusky foal strolled up to the fence separating our small paddocks. My mother laid her ears flat back.

“That’s close enough,” she said with a low squeal and a snake neck.

“Relax, Moonbeam, we’re just saying hello to your new baby” the roan mare said, her foal peeping shyly from under her belly. “He’s yellow, bright like the sun” she said, “that’s lucky for both of you.”

“He is. He’s going to be famous like his father,” my mother replied. She relaxed as much as a new mother could. Then she added, “Your foal is very handsome, Patina. I’m glad that our babies will grow up together and be friends.”

“That will be nice,” Patina replied, and moved off a few strides to graze near us while her foal nursed and glanced back and forth at us with curious eyes.

I spent the first few weeks of my life in that small paddock, next to the mare and foal who greeted us. Her name was Patina and her foal’s name was Red. They were both dark coated horses with a dusting of black around their bodies. I also met the human who cared for us and who was our owner, Mr. Mack and his two dogs Ruby, a Great Pyranese and Buddy, an Australian Shepard.

Red had been born a week before me and I looked up to him because he was older than I. As our mother’s had hoped, Red and I became friends. He and I would bump noses through the fence and trot and run alongside each other.

Although we were separated by a fence and stayed close to our mothers, we were able to bump noses and politely champ our teeth to our mothers. Foals and young horses champ their teeth to older, wiser horses to show our manners and respect. We also ask them to be patient with us because we’re still learning how to be a horse. Everything was new and fascinating, and my only job was to learn and grow. And listen to my mother.

My mother was a pretty mare. Smart too. Even the humans who tended us said so. She was fifteen hands tall and dappled gray. She had kind, soft brown eyes, a star-strip and snip down her dainty face. She had a thick mane and tail that started out dark but lightened until it was nearly white at the bottom. Her mane was the same color. It was so full it often fell over both sides of her neck. She had a long, thick forelock to whisk the flies away from her eyes.

Flies are such miserable creatures, the enemy of every horse. They are always tickling, burning and biting. I loved my mother’s tail because I could tuck close to her and with each swish of her tail the dreadful pests would be shooed away. I had my own tail, but it was a foal’s tail. It was short with downy ringlets not useful for much of anything yet, but I flicked at them just the same. As a baby horse I tried to copy what I saw grown horses do.

After a few weeks, Mr. Mack came and moved us to the paddock with Patina and Red. I was very excited about this because I was becoming curious about the world. My mother, Patina and Red were happy about this too. We all got along and had become like our own small herd.

The thing Red and I liked to do more than anything in the world was to run. Red and I loved to chase each other around. We’d play tag and take turns deciding who was ‘it.’ We loved to run as all horses do. We are born for it. I could run as fast as my mother starting from as long as I can remember. There is something so marvelous about the way everything feels when I run.

When horses run we become aware of many wonderful things. The first is feeling the strength of our legs as we spring off from the hard dirt. The next is a joyful rush of feeling the still air become like the wind in our face as we go faster and faster. Finally, the way the earth feels under our hooves is amazing. We can feel the hardness or softness of the soil, and also how deep or shallow it is. It teaches us to pick our paths and learn to be surefooted, sound and strong. Besides eating, running and playing are horses favorite things to do.

Red and I ran and played every chance we got. We were young foals and that was what we were supposed to do. By playing with each other we learned so much. We learned where our bodies were and were not. How to untangle gangly foal legs when we occasionally tripped on them. We learned to respect each other and not to bite or kick at each other too hard.

We learned the differences between flowers and butterflies. By chasing butterflies we learned the difference between butterflies and bees. Bees will sting you on the nose. Butterflies will tickle you. We learned to eat grass by being spraddle-legged copy cats of our mothers, and how to snap the blades properly near the root without pulling it out. With help from our mothers, we figured out which plants were bitter, but good for us and which plants would make us sick and wobbly. We also learned the smells of insects and the other small animals that shared our pasture.

We grew strong and fast. Before long the weather grew hot and it rained less often. Red and I would spend more and more time away from our mothers, only coming back to nurse a little bit and then nap.

Mr. Mack would come and check on us, my mother trusted him so she let him pet me and give me scritches on my neck and my rump. At first I was very nervous of Mr. Mack’s hands, or grabbers as I called them when I was young. I would shy away, then come back slowly when I saw him pet and stroke my mother’s neck and nose. She enjoyed it and so I followed her example and learned that human grabbers–hands, I mean, are very nice when they want to be. And in that way Mr. Mack gentled me to being handled and started teaching me how to have good manners with humans. It was not long before I had my own small halter hanging on the fence post next my mother’s. I was very proud of it, as I took it to mean that I was becoming a grown up horse.