We're ALL Pony Nuts

The women at the barn all have good riding horses. Not a one of them is un-rideable. All of them are multi-talented, well behaved, mannerly horses.  Most of them are registered purebreds of one breed or another. One or two of them have been successful in the show ring, the dressage arena, or the 3 day events. ALL of them are deeply loved. We all love everyone else’s horse, and watch over them like doting aunties.

Yet, when Gretchen led Romeo, a rescue pony (officially a “miniature horse’, but let’s be honest. He’s a pony.) out of the horse trailer, every one of us women went suddenly batshit goo-goo crazy.  As the well-shaped ‘silver dapple’ stopped and looked around at his new home, we all went into paroxysms of “he’s so cute”. Even the Barn lord, who has never, ever in her life seemed to demonstrate any form of ‘awwwwwwwww’ was taken with him.  

Romeo, the barn's newest heart throb

We were as smitten as if the pony had been the latest Hollywood heartthrob.

Despite their appearance, ponies...especially Shetlands...are not domesticated animals. Due to their small size, (and obstinate refusal to be relegated to beta status) they can’t be ridden by an adult horse trainer. Thus, most ponies are halter broken and not much more.

Add to that the fact that they are as intelligent as any full sized horse, with a huge addition of mischief and out right scoundrel. Every horseman I’ve ever known has a story about a Devil Pony.

It was interesting to see the resident horse’s reactions when they first get a good look at Romeo. They are, in a word, astonished. Raven looked at him long and hard, snorting a little. He could SMELL a horse but this little creature was no bigger than some of the dogs. Another gelding bolted when he saw Romeo. Gretchen’s daughter’s gelding, Macho, could not believe his eyes. He literally reached out, gingerly, to touch this tiny creature. Suddenly understanding that Romeo was equine, he very civilly began to nibble the pony’s spine. Romeo kicked at him.

Romeo has little man syndrome. He charges any gelding he’s turned out with, consequently, he’s in a pen by himself. I believe he was gelded very late (he’s said to be 13) because he acts like a recently (or proud cut?) gelded stallion, by trying to dominate the much bigger geldings.

          But the mares? He struts, like a prince amongst the peasants. With one exception, the mares in the barn are as babytalking crazy about the pony as the humans. They think he’s the most adorable thing they’ve ever seen. Amazingly, Brandy, in the neighboring pen, is the most smitten. Brandy can be  difficult. She’s very, VERY alpha, opinionated, and will push you around if you allow it. But she is putty in Romeo’s hooves. On the few times she had foals, she was a doting, protective mother, and now, we are convinced, she thinks Romeo is a foal. She now sticks very close to Romeo, watching his every move.

Brandy and Romeo

The one mare exception is Gretchen’s mare, Lucy. SHE knew immediately that this pint sized invader had stolen Her Momma’s heart. Jealousy made her smoke, giving Gretchen the stink eye and pinning her ears at the very sight of Romeo. Romeo, Shmomeo, get the hell outta here, Romeo.(my apologies to Shakespeare)

What is it about this little horse that has turned all the women into slobbering fools? He has no training, but Gretchen is teaching him to lunge. He is much too small for anyone to ride, and we don’t know if he was ever saddled or bridled. He’s in a halter made for foals.

I think I know what it is.

Romeo is a toy horse. A living, breathing toy horse. Quite a big larger than the toy horses, the models, the Breyer’s horses you collected as a kid and if you tell me you’re all grown up now, you don’t have any toy horses, I’m going to think you’re lying or embarrassed. Hey, look. It’s okay. It’s just us horsemen here. I still have all the ones I collected during my childhood. Battle scarred, I admit, they can’t be considered in pristine condition. But they still stand proudly on a shelf, faithfully carrying my childhood dreams on their dusty backs.

My childhood dream weavers

We don’t grow out of our attraction to tiny horses. It matters not how good our real one is, or how old we are. We still go bananas over tiny horses.

Just like the toy horses, you can’t ride a pony, but you can enjoy them for their being small enough to be manageable. You can push a pony around, unlike that monster 17 hand warmblood that just looks daft as you try to push him off your foot.  We women have this innate attraction to small, cute things. Maybe that’s why so many women like babies, although THIS woman never could get it, and thus, never had them.

The advantage Romeo has is, we believe he was not only never broken, but never really handled. He came from a very bad neglect case, where over 25 ponies, a couple of horses and several dogs were taken away from the ‘hoarder’ owner who had never taken proper care of them. I’m certain she had Pony Syndrome just like the rest of us. Maybe she had brought home a mare, and then a gelding that was said to be a gelding but wasn’t...and things just took off.

But then, I’m giving the hoarder too much the benefit of the doubt. Like puppy millers, I don’t have much patience for someone who will throw fifteen horses on a bare dirt, five acre lot with a bucket of filthy water.

Luckily, it appears Romeo hasn’t learned all the dirty tricks a pony demonstrates...running full tilt into a tree to scrape a kid off his back, tearing up the blankets of the bigger horses around him, sneaking under the hot wire fence to get into mischief.

He’s friendly. I entered his stall and first marveled at how tiny his manure piles were. Compared to Raven’s mountains of poop, Romeo’s could be picked up with a hand shovel. 

Tiny horses make for tiny manure piles.

Gretchen, though, says that yeah, his piles are small but he makes a LOT of them. I guess it all evens out in the end.

He came right up to me, looking for treats, or scritches, I don’t know which. I literally had to step outside his pen in order to get a picture of him.

We must be careful. His hooves show he’s foundered at least once. Not unusual in ponies, they’re easy keepers and horribly inbred. In the short amount of time that he’s been at the barn he’s put on some weight.  So...no treats for Little Big Man.

There are no plans for him, honestly, other than something to play with. Although, knowing Gretchen, she’s probably going to try and break him to saddle and bridle. The problem is finding the tack. Maybe she'll break him to drive. I know Barn lord probably knows how to train a horse for that. That would be fun.

But if that doesn’t happen, he’s still the barn mascot.

As for us? Well, here’s a picture (sorry to say, it’s a third generation reprint, I don’t have a scanner that can take 35 mm anymore). I took at a 3 day event near Houston, TX, many years ago. 

All those kids in love with ponies.

The mounted girl is riding “Goldilocks”, a lovely palomino Welsh mare.  The girl won all sorts of ribbons. She was a good rider, and Goldilocks was well trained and willing. But I suspect that in most of the classes, she won because she was the only child rider in her age group competing.

The girl could not ride ANYWHERE without attracting a bunch of like sized girls-and even one boy. All of them were oohing and ahhing over Goldilocks.

Just look at the faces, the need to touch the little mare. Those girls were...like us...batshit goo-goo crazy for a pony.

My Non-Horsey Husband knows me. He stuffs a toy horse in my Christmas stocking every year. 

OK, so I'm still getting toy horses for Christmas

He found a phrase somewhere on the ‘net that fits me perfectly:

“I might be old, but I’m still going to ask for a pony for Christmas.”