Horsemanship Through Life by Mark Rashid

Author:Mark Rashid
Language: nld
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2012-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Awareness

It was part of my morning routine. I took three scoops of oats out of the big bin and placed one in each of the feed boxes in the first three tie stalls. Then I went to the back door of the barn and opened the top of the big Dutch door to see the three old horses patiently waiting there for their breakfast.

These three horses were the geriatric members of the old man's herd, two geldings and one mare, and for the most part their days were spent just grazing in the back pasture. Every morning, however, they made their way up to the barn and stood by the back door. I swung the bottom half of the Dutch door open, and they quietly filed in. First the gelding named Bullet, then the mare, Abby, and finally the other old gelding, Sox.

They entered in single file and went directly to their stalls, Bullet in the left stall, Abby in the middle, and Sox on the right. Once they were in and eating, I went into each stall and put their halters on. Each halter was attached to a clip in the stall by a short lead rope. Once they were all in their stalls, haltered up and eating, I went about the rest of my morning chores.

One morning I had arrived at the barn before the old man and was about ten minutes into my morning routine, when he pulled up in his old truck. I happened to be walking past the front of the barn, so I waited as he climbed out and came over.

“Everything all right today?” he asked, lighting probably his twentieth cigarette of the day.

“Yup,” I replied. “Just finishing up with the feeding.”

He nodded and turned for the tack room.

“That mare is finished up with her oats, there in the barn,” he said nonchalantly. “You should probably turn her out before she causes a ruckus with them geldings.”

Now, when the old man pulled into the yard that morning, he stopped his truck nearly thirty feet from the barn where those old horses were eating. He hadn't gone into the barn, and he couldn't see into it either. Yet, somehow he knew one of the horses inside the barn had finished eating. Not only that, but he knew exactly which one. It was almost as if he had x-ray vision.

I went back into the barn, and sure enough, Abby had finished her oats and was trying to get her head into the other two stalls in hopes of stealing a little grain from the geldings. It was a little spooky the way the old man was able to do things like that. Over and over again, he would surprise me by somehow knowing about something that was happening, even when it seemed unlikely that he could have seen or heard it.

The more I thought about what he'd done that morning, the more it bugged me. Unable to stand it any longer, along about noon I approached him and asked him how he knew that the old mare had finished eating.

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