Aussie and I stared at each other across the alley. We were both at the
horse show, sharing temporary space in the stable.
Early in the morning, Aussie ambled off for a shower, a process
involving plenty of shampoo and snorting. After sluicing off, he had
his hair braided, his coat curried and his shoes changed. He was
saddled with monogrammed leather livery and off he went to warm up and
jump some fences.
While he was gone, I thought about Aussie’s lifestyle compared to that
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of Dimples, the inimitable ranch horse. A jog through the lawn
sprinkler and a splash in the creek were the closest she came to
bathing. Little girls of her acquaintance may have braided her hair
once or twice, but the final look never approached the elegance of
Aussie’s coiffure.
Dimples shared tack with the other ranch horses. She often wore a
saddle but was just as often ridden bareback. She was fairly well
acquainted with the curry comb but preferred a vigorous roll in the
dirt when a sweaty saddle was removed.
In my reverie about the dearly departed, I imagined a glimpse of
Dimples in the cool gloom of the alley, silhouetted against the bright
sunlight of the doorway.
But then Aussie materialized, striding confidently through the dust
motes of the barn. Silly me. Aussie is a 17-hand Hanoverian with long,
lean legs and registration papers tucked in his tack box.
Dimples was chunky, bordering on rotund, with sturdy legs and an
appetite for paper, when she saw any.
After the exertions of leaping approximately 16 fences, Aussie needed
another shower, a comb out and new wraps for his shins, after which he
was dressed in a stall-lounging coat.
His success in leaving rails intact was rewarded with a few carrots and
a main course of nutritious compressed pellets and aromatic alfalfa
hay. He toasted himself with sips of water activated by a nose pump in
his stall.
I thought of Dimples, rewarded occasionally with carrots or sugar
cubes, but more often stealing her own snacks via clandestine garden
raids. I recalled her unfortunate choice of nibbles when she tore a
chunk from the roof of the convertible. I thought of her noisy gulps
from a trough and the way she forced her whiskered nose through ragged
edges of ice in winter to drink from the creek.
Time and circumstance and perhaps a small fortune separated Aussie from
Dimples, the same way those things separate people. Fortunately they
made no difference in the way both horses were loved.
