A Horse for Haley

The stallion huddled in the corner of the small paddock, his crusty hide sagging from his bones. His owner had said the horse was a half-Arabian pinto, but I could barely make out the two-color coat beneath the muck.

His hair was matted and mud-caked, his mane dirt-streaked. I approached cautiously, but the horse took no notice. He just picked listlessly at a clump of hay. No wonder he’s being offered for free, I thought. No one would want a horse like this.

“Free Horse.” That’s what my husband had scribbled down on a notepad along with a phone number, an offhand mention by a friend. It seemed like perfect timing—we were looking for a horse for our nine-year-old daughter, Haley.

A year ago, when she was finally old enough to help take care of a horse and ride on her own, we had bought her a snow-white Welsh mare named Lady.

She turned out to be the perfect horse for Haley—gentle, well-behaved, as comfortable walking in our town’s Independence Day parade as she was roaming the nature trails around our farm. But Lady developed laminitis, a crippling condition. We had to put her down, and Haley was devastated.

Our other horses were too big and spirited for her. She was using a friend’s pony to complete her 4-H program, but I knew how badly she wanted a horse of her own and I’d prayed for an answer. “Free Horse?” There had to be a catch…

There was. On the phone, the man had told me the horse was a stallion, neglected and left to run wild by its previous owner. Already that told me the horse wasn’t good for Haley, or any child.

Stallions are naturally more aggressive than mares. Even if gelded, the horse was completely untrained. At eight years old, he might never come around.

But my curiosity led me to the man’s farm. I’d trained several horses. Perhaps I could nurse this stallion back to health, train him, then put him up for sale and use the money to get Haley a new horse.

Since Lady had died, we had a stall available. Besides, I knew if I didn’t take a chance on this horse, I was pretty sure no one else would. Chance, a good name for a horse, I thought.

The following weekend I brought Chance home. His weak back legs wobbled so much he could barely step into the horse trailer. I had to practically push him in.

The first thing I did was put him in a round pen, away from our other horses, and focus on getting some weight on him. I walked out to the pen twice a day to feed him. “Can I feed him, Mommy?” Haley asked.

“Not yet,” I said. I needed to see how Chance would behave first.