Babe Part 1 - the first in a series of memories and accounts of her wonderful life.

Babe was born May 12^th, 1995 in Wilmington, Vermont. I was her second owner and got her when she was 2 years old. My friends Lenny and Diane found her for me. About a week after I got her, Lenny and Diane took me out to see the place Babe was born. It was mud season, which is the time in Vermont between Winter and Spring. The sky held gray, and even at midday there was no warmth. All the snow was gone, but brown was the overwhelming color of the landscape. We took mostly gravel roads to the isolated property, which was a small place in partly cleared woods. In a half-acre dirt paddock sided by a dilapidated shed row barn were about a half dozen horses. The farmer let me into the paddock and he and Lenny and Diane leaned on the rail. He held an open cardboard 12-pack of bud cans in his hand, which he offered from. I said “no, thank you.” The fence was a thrown together combo of wire, gates, and odd lengths of board. There was a dearth of forage and no hay was evident. All the horses crowded me, hoping that I bore food of some kind. Two huge Belgian mares, one of which was Babe’s mom, plodded over and sniffed me. “That there’s Babe’s mama,”  he said, pointing to the one nearer to me. I petted her big face, and she snorted softly. She and her sister were almost identical.  They had foaled at the same time, and Babe’s cousin was a beautiful liver chestnut colt. Both mares had been bred to the same Morgan, and although they were chestnut, Babe was solid black with a big star between her eyes. She had a finely featured face, and excellent feet. There were two other colts in the yard, yearlings. Clearly they just had too many horses; therefore we fell into the good fortune of acquiring their least favorite one. He said Babe was “a tough one” and his daughter, who was training the colt in a cleared area outside the paddock, said, “She’s tough alright. You gotta always use a chain on her.”  She offered to come work with her and help me break her. I said I’d let her know.

I had fallen in love with Babe. She’d been a freakshow coming off the trailer, and I could tell she was glad to be parting company with her first humans. The girl had pulled her off the trailer and yanked the chain over her nose, and Babe reared back, grunting. She spun around but the girl was able to get her into the barn and stuffed into the stall. The presence of hay and grain were all she needed to embrace her new home. As I watched her eat, I thought about how twenty years earlier I’d lost my second horse, a sweet mare, to colic. I always knew some day I’d have another horse in my life. I didn’t plan to get another horse, but suddenly here she was, a skinny 2 year old barely halter broke. That night I went back to her stall to look at her. I made a promise to her that I’d never be cruel and that I’d always love her. I was mostly able to keep that promise. She tested my resolve right away, when I began to do ground work with her.  I would lunge her, ground drive her and lead her, and we had a great time. Most of the time, she was pretty darn sweet. I’d lead her around with me everywhere and she followed along because for every 15-20 minutes of her attention, she got about 20 hours of being left completely to her own devices and there was plenty for her to eat. But if suddenly she decided she was done being led around, she’d turn her head, and simply bulldoze ahead in the direction she wanted to go at a brisk trot. I’d go after her, and as long as there was a leadrope attached, I could grab her. I was so foolish, and gullible. She was training me; and making certain that I knew her strength and her will would never be a thing I could dominate. I guess I never really wanted to.

We moved to Virginia in August 1999, when Babe was four. I’d gotten her started under saddle and was boarding her in Middleburg with my friend Nette, who wisely knew upon seeing her that she’d make a good foxhunter. Nette was a former eventer who loves dressage, so she offered to work with Babe. When Nette attempted to get her to go on the bit, Babe literally dumped her on the ground while breaking out of the fenced ring. Nette curled up in a ball, and Babe rather daintily avoided stepping on her. So much for going in a frame or any of that nonsense. Somehow though, Babe became a favorite with whoever was in her field. Nette’s two mares were like her sisters. They were great together, except that Babe had a thing about being caught. So when Nette was bringing in horses to feed one morning, Babe decided to pass on breakfast, as she was busy on the nice grass. Once she saw that she was alone, and her friends were inside, though, she changed her mind. She walked up to the gate, and pushed her fat chest against it, hoping it would just pop open and she could escort herself in. It was a pretty solid gate though, so it took more effort. She leaned hard. Instead of the gate giving way, the post itself gave way. As it came down and she crashed through it, a gate-hinge gouged her, probably cracking a rib, and she had a permanent dent there for the rest of her life. It didn't break the skin, never lost hair, it was just a dent in her side at the exact spot where the hinge and her body met. That spot on her side never healed, and I loved to touch it as I groomed her, feeling that thumb-sized indentation that marked her stubborn, piggish personality. Another time, when she was separated from those two mares of Nette’s, Babe tried to climb over a gate into their field and didn’t quite make it. She was stuck for a bit of time halfway over the gate, front legs on one side, back legs on the other side. She finally did make it to the other side. I doubt anyone tried to separate them again after that.

            After Nette moved to Maryland, I was in limbo for a while and didn’t really have a great place to board. Thankfully, I was offered a place for her at Foxcroft, where I had recently been hired. Foxcroft would be Babe’s home from age 7 to age 17. As soon as I got Babe settled in, Nelly and Merrilyn said, “come hunting with us!” And so, without any idea what the hell I was doing, I did, and boy was it a complete disaster the first few times. Well, for the first year. Or two. She didn’t have any real vices, such as kicking or bucking, she just wanted to GO. She did not like the checks, because standing around is bullshit when you are an all business kind of mare. And the whole idea of waiting your turn and jumping in an orderly fashion was also complete rubbish. If the horse in front of her was taking too long to approach the coop, she would just blast by and get the job done. One thing she always did, and I loved her so dearly for it, was take care of herself. Which meant she took care of me. Nothing scared me, because I knew in my heart she would do whatever it took to get us through it. I wish I had taken care of her as well as she’d taken care of me… the few times she had footing mishaps, I could have prevented them by riding better. Once, running up a washed out trail with deep gullies from rain runoff, I should have legged her over, but I didn’t, and she slipped into the ditch, doing a complete face plant. I was on the ground in a fetal position just knowing that she’d pick herself up and be on top of me, and although one of her bare feet did step right in the middle of my back, it surprisingly didn’t hurt at all. After some kind soul ahead of us caught her, I got back on and rode for another hour. She had dirt on her face, and I had a footprint on my back. We were both blissfully happy.

Babe in Vermont, 1997

Babe at two

Baby Babe