Horse Stories

When I was a young tacker I spent some time on my Uncles farm at Kojunup, Western Australia. I was pre-teen and unfamiliar with horses so was somewhat amused to watch my Uncle saddle a work horse (yes, it was that long ago). Reins, saddle and girth strap were all hooked up when the horse decided to lay down in the dirt. Wondering how my Uncle would handle this I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. He simply took a couple of steps back and ran at the supine horse giving it a kick in the guts at about the girth strap area. The horse let out a huge blast of air and Uncle bent over and pulled in the girth strap another four notches. “You see young Kevin”, he explained, “it’s a ritual. Every time I saddle the bloody thing he takes in a great big breath hoping I wont notice and later on fall off with the saddle because of a loose girth strap.” “He also lies down just to make it more difficult” This all come to mind when surfing the web today I came across this story by Denis McCarthy about a young Aussie joining the Army and his trials and tribulations with saddlery and a big whaler called ‘Black’ Prince. Go read, it’s amusing.