Most days I am over the moon to own a Morgan. Ever since I read “Keeping Barney” as a preteen, Morgans have piqued my interest. I’m not sure if it was the author’s description of that sturdy, stubborn horse or how much I saw myself in that dreamy girl, but something about the book interested me. When I saw my first Morgan in the flesh - a beautiful bright bay stallion prancing at the lineup of a parade, all fire, substance, and flash - I was hooked.
It took me until I was into my 30s before I was finally able to cross that line from admiring to owning. Most days I look out into my yard as my gangly filly grows into a beautiful mare, and I can’t believe my luck.
Most days.
And then there are those other days…
See, I keep mentioning it, but it still astounds me how much Morgans absolutely love being around people. I usually love it, but there’s a definite downside to owning a horse that loves people, and that downside is that my pasture shares a fence with my backyard.
I know that doesn’t sound like a downside. It’s pretty fantastic being able to be with her any time I want. Every time my kiddos go outside to jump on the trampoline I go stand by the fence line and dig my fingers underneath her warm mane. It never fails to improve my mood.
The problem is that Reverie enjoys it too, and I’ve created a monster. Every time I'm out in the yard, Reverie’s standing at the gate, begging me for attention. She stands at the gate with pricked ears, intent as a border collie, staring at me so hard I hear that song from Dirty Dancing playing in my head.
Huuuungry Eyeeees….
I’ve never seen a horse more desperate to join people. She wants to join us. She
yearns
to join us. She hangs her neck over the fence, stretching towards us. She lips the gate chain with her mouth, wishing she had fingers. On the worst days it feels like it’s more than a simple wish that she could join us in the backyard. She seems to actively resent being on the other side. It doesn’t matter that there’s 2 acres of lush green pasture she could be eating. It doesn’t matter that our grumpy pony that she’s overly-bonded to is way on the other side of the property, actively ignoring us.
Reverie loves her people, and her people are in the backyard, and
why the heck is there a freaking gate separating her from all that joy and laughter?! This is ridiculous! She demands to see a manager!
A couple of weeks ago, all of Reverie’s wildest dreams came true. I can’t even remember which kid left the gate open. All I know is that one moment I was watching four kids jumping on the trampoline and playing with the goats, and the next thing I know there was 700 pounds of extremely excited 2-year-old Morgan filly sauntering into the backyard.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a horse smile before, but I know I have. Her neck was almost vertical in the air, her tail was curled up over her back, and I have never seen her eyes brighter. If I’d had a camera and could have snapped a picture just right, it probably would have made the cover of The Morgan Horse Magazine…. you know, if I could photoshop out the crooked tire swing, plastic toys, discarded kid shoes, and the trampoline with the waist-high grass growing up underneath it.
This wasn’t my first rodeo with trying to herd a horse on foot, so I knew what to do. The worst possible thing you can do is get excited about it, or chase the horse. You don’t make a big fuss about it - you just quietly get in front of the escapee and turn them in the right direction by applying pressure to their bubble. The trick is to make your body language nonchalant - just slowly head them off at the pass until you can drive them back the way they came. It was simple. I’d done it tons of times in the past.
Besides, there really wasn’t anything of interest in the yard, and by joining us Reverie was now separated from her horse friend. She’d probably just do a slow lap or two and then be willing to head back out to join her herd.
Hah.
Famous. Last. Words.
I lengthened my stride and made it about even with her hip before I realized I was no longer gaining on her because she, too, had lengthened her stride.
I walked faster and thought bad thoughts.
She sped up slightly and studiously ignored me. What, her? Was there a human beside her? She couldn’t see me. I must be walking in her blind spot.
I stretched my legs even further and glared at her from under lowered lashes- I’m 5’8 barefoot and I can outwalk most people that I know.
Reverie avoided my gaze and lengthened her stride even more.
Etc, Etc.
I’m sure the two of us looked ridiculous, power walking laps around the backyard and pretending for all we were worth: me pretending that I wasn’t actually racing in an effort to avoid escalating her, and her pretending she didn’t know what I was doing, so she didn’t have to acknowledge she was being bad.
Eventually, like the super amazing horsewoman I am, I lost my temper. “Oh, for crap’s sake!” I said, and broke into a jog to try to head her off.
WHEEEE! YOU STARTED THE GAME! said the 2-year-old horse as she bounced off in the world’s most springy trot.
Again, it might have been beautiful if I could have sat back and just admired her movement…. But I had four kids in the yard, three young goats, a yard full of toys, and a hyperactive young horse that liked to pretend-kick at things through the paddock fence whenever she galloped by.
It was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Twins, get on the trampoline,” I cried out, as Reverie completed her first lap of the yard and broke into a delighted, airy canter. “Boys, stay out of her way.” I hitched up my sagging pants and broke into a run of my own.
I tried to head her off and turn her back through the open gate, but Reverie twisted her head away from me. Reverie seems to operate under the same set of rules that my kids do - if your parents can’t see you being bad, are you really even in trouble?
Besides, why should she go through the gate? She’d spent her whole life trying to get into this backyard, yearning to join us, and she was not about to waste a moment of it.
She careened through the trees. She slalomed through the Cozy Coupes. She played ring-around-the-rosie with the tire swing, leapt over tonka trunks, and made delighted rings around the trampoline.
“GET OUT!” I hollered, lobbing a dirt clod at her back end… because, of course, that was going to solve everything, right?
Reverie tossed her head in sheer joy. Run faster? Okay! The goats scattered like bowling pins before her and my older boys scurried to join their siblings on the relative safety of the trampoline.
“OUT!” I could feel my face getting red. “OUT OUT OUT! GET OUT!” I said, huffing and sweating along in her wake, always just a few feet short of being in the right position to turn her around as she spun on her heel and danced circles around the toy-infested agility course that was my backyard. I would have been impressed at her athleticism if she wasn’t showing me up so bad. “GET OUT OF MY YARD!”
Not a chance!
I love it here!
I threw another dirt clod. (Side note: I don’t think anyone is going to be making a Netflix series about Becky the Horse Whisperer any time soon.)
Reverie twisted her head up in the air again in horsey laughter and ran even faster, pausing only to sniff at a toy until I got within range before racing off again. I swear she was wearing a giant, ecstatic grin that grew bigger with every lap. She deliberately whacked the tire swing with her shoulder as she went by, flipping her tail happily as she sent it swinging. She’d been staring at that backyard, desperate to join us for months, and she didn’t care how much trouble she was going to get into. It was worth every second of it. Look at her! Look at her in the backyard, doing peopley things, with all her favorite people!
She did about 20 laps around the trampoline as the kids alternated between shrieking with laughter and yelling, “Don’t let her get the goats!”
“I’m not gonna let her stomp a goat!” I hollered back at them, in one of those sentences that comes out of my mouth which lets me know that I definitely no longer live in California.
Eventually I found an old tree branch and managed to use it to extend my own bubble and usher her out the gate. The second she was out, she visibly drooped. Within a few dozen yards, her tail had uncurled, her neck had lowered, and she had dropped from a happy gallop into a depressed walk.
The kids came back down off the trampoline, and the goats stopped huddling together by one of the trees.
Our pony Carrots had come up the hill to see what all the commotion was about, but eventually throughout the ruckus she’d gone back to ignoring us and was now greedily cropping slivers of grass through her grazing muzzle.
Reverie stared at Carrots - at the waving grass and room to run.
Reverie stared back at the fenced-off people, including a very sweaty me, who was glaring at her with my arms folded over my chest.
She glanced at Carrots one last time, and then she turned around and walked deliberately over to the gate and hung her head over it, begging at me with pricked ears.
Huuuungry Eeeyes...
