I got a phone call today that made me sad. A Kaimanawa horse that attacked people. How does it come to the point where a wild horse just attacks at the mere prescience of people.
To cut a long story short the women had picked up this horse, a young filly, along with another and brought it home. Only to find that when you went in the paddock with the young horse it ran and attacked. Teeth bared, threatening to bite kick, and drive you off. This wasn't actually a truly wild horse, its mother had been mustered pregnant and given birth once in captivity. So really even less understandable its reactions.
The women, a friend didn't want it, for obvious reasons, who wants a savage horse? Knowing that I've worked with these horses and have a soft spot for our wild horses she rang to see if I wanted it.
Sometimes I don't know what comes over me. The obvious answer was no, I didn't want it. I don't need another mouth to feed, more expenses, more work and a horse that I will make no money on and is to young to break in to ride and have any use what so ever. The words than popped out of my mouth was "yes, I'll take it"
Instant regret. But as soon as the words came out there was no going back. Sounds like I have myself a new challenge, albeit one I didn't need. But to be honest I'm intrigued how did an animal end up trying to savage people, can it be fixed, can I be the one to do it? I'm sure ill find out soon enough and have plenty of time to rue the decision at great length, I pick the horse up next week.
This wasn't the first, nor will it be the last phone call of this sort I receive. I've heard and dealt with many stories of savage horses. In India I was almost killed by the only truly savage horse I've ever come across.
A stallion that had known such brutality at the hands of man he had gone rogue as a means to survive. I didn't believe the guys at the rescue when they told me how bad he was, and almost payed the price when he went out of his way to run me down teeth bared and tore my hat off me head when I waved my arms to scare off his charge. I was lucky it wasn't my scalp. I listen and handle these cases with a healthy dose of caution these days.
Hopefully this little filly won't be as bad. It makes me sad though to hear of horses like this though, because somewhere along the line something has gone wrong. Horses are naturally this way, they are not happy like this, these behaviours are man made, and usually the horse is the one who pays the ultimate price for our mistakes.
