My 11 yr old grand-daughter, Ashley ( then 24 month old ) with her pony "Artax."Having no idea what to do about my home & barn this chilly morning I decided to switch pace and get away from the house and barn situation for a day.
John Boyd is supposed to be back in the area today, Senator Adair's office may know something today. There are so many variables working and not one may pan out that if I don't take a break it will break me. I am simply a nervous wreck.
I sat with a small group of professionals in the horse industry discussing the state of the economy yesterday afternoon. The latest Keenland prices show an improvement but with rock bottom prices motivating middle eastern buyers there is no telling if we can see this as a sign of recovery or a slight of hand.
Penn National Gaming is moving into Texas, an announcement they made in September 2010. They wouldn't do so if the Texas legislation wasn't ready to make casino's legal in the state of Texas. That move may open up a market for NM breeders to sell to the Texas market, but it may knock a huge hole in Ruidoso Downs and The Inn Of the Mountain Gods.
I wonder if Hubbard and Allred knew this was going to happen before they requested tax relief? Nah, they wouldn't con the people of Lincoln County surely?
The fact that Hubbard sold Zia to Penn National Gaming wouldn't give him close enough inside information to know what is coming down the road in Texas. Wink, wink, nod, nod.
The fact is, no-one knows what is going to happen nor what is coming on the horizon. These are strange times, precarious times. And it hasn't passed my notice that if financially secure people are struggling the victims of crime, like myself, who are left homeless have really got a tough row to hoe.
I don't have a home, so I had to be very resourceful in trying to acquire internet connection. I have it by stringing yards of inside phone lines across to a shed. But it's a very poor connection, and very temperamental. Yet I spent 3 days trying to load one video because it is simply delightful...
After the building fund was stolen the backhoe woman decided that she was going to give away my grand-childrens ponies because my mother and I had become a victim of crime. But I had no idea that this was even happening. I stood helpless and horrified while she phoned a radio station and, out of the blue, announced to the DJ that she had "horses to give away." I rather suspected that the owners of those ponies may verbalize slight objections but she couldn't understand why a grand-mother couldn't get rid of her grand-children's ponies.
"Why" I couldn't do that didn't seem relevant. Neither did, "How can I benefit from doing that?" I can't just walk inside my daughters homes and give away their furniture, or give away their vehicles. If people own something you can't just take their property away from them, no matter how wonderful you may think you look by having all of this 'property" to give away and causing the "drama" of such. You can't resolve the consequences of one theft by stealing from others, especially not stealing from children.
The past 3 years has been a strange road to walk. Half the time trying to defend yourself from total insanity & chaos, the other half not even knowing what insanity and chaos is being manufactured until it's too late to stop it. And all the time trying to focus on court subpoena's, ill & dying children, homelessness and personal health problems that was stressing & exhausting the entire family.
Sometimes you just have way too much going on, too much in too many directions to notice the wildfires people are setting. Until it's out of hand. But this one I noticed and reacted exactly as my mother had done 45 years previous.
My own "Ed" was a New Forest pony called "Yonto." My father purchased Yonto when I was a wee child. 8 years prior he had came from the yearly New Forest round-up, with the LA ownership brand on his shoulder. When my father was killed at Criggleston Pit the lawyers wanted my mother to liquidate everything, including my pony, and her actions left an indelible mark upon me.
True, the situation was a lot different than that of my grand-children. I was a minor child living at home, where my daughters are married with families and lives of their own. My mother paid all the bills, where my daughters and their spouses are responsible for my grand-children and their costs.
But my mother, a person who really doesn't like horses, and who had objected to my father even buying the pony REFUSED to sell Yonto. I was 12 years old, with a pony I had owned since I was 4 or 5 years old who meant the world to me. And my mother refused to see me hurt anymore than I had already been hurt by the loss of my father.
I will remember my mother for that selfless act until the day I draw my last breath.
I owned Yonto until my oldest daughter was born, 12 years later. Putting him to sleep due to severe arthritis was the hardest thing I had ever had to do. He was my best friend, my confidant, and he stood for a love of such depth that "thank you" just didn't cover.
My daughters had a Welsh section A pony called "Sweet Charity" and an American Shetland called "Pollyanna" who could be buggers. All of my grand-children each have a pony .. all branded with the same type of mischievousness. All they have owned since being tiny children.
You just have to love those ponies. This little boy will always love the naughty pony who made a horseman out of him, and the memories of that little gray Welsh section A will warm him in his old age. If you question that ask any horsemen and they will tell you of the equine "loves in their lives," and the first is always a naughty pony.
There is only one problem with falling in love with a horse or a pony.... they don't live long enough, but oh, the memories they make and the characteristics they form in their owners.
God forbid that I should go to any Heaven in which there are no horses. ~R.B. Cunninghame Graham, letter to Theodore Roosevelt, 1917
Pip, a little British equestrian with his pony, "Ed."
