Ciao, Bella!
Originally published in Horse Directory, August
2012
By Tom Gumbrecht
I have, it seems, been blessed with a love
for all horses. Some, however, have at
times been difficult to get along with.
For me, Bella had fallen into that category. Like many strained
relationships, it was born of a lack of communication. Although in my barn, on
and off, for quite a few years, I really didn’t know her.
Bella was Samantha’s second horse, purchased
after her first horse, Magic, passed away as a senior. She came from a farm in northern
Connecticut, the fruit of Samantha’s exhaustive internet searches. She was as
beautiful as she was young, only three years old when we met her. Sam was 15 then, but we had both put in seven
years with packers and schoolmasters, so with the help of a trainer, I believed
her to be up to the challenge.
Bella, a buckskin pinto half-Arabian,
half-Saddlebred mare, turned heads wherever she went. She proved a bit difficult
to handle, but her speed and Sam’s keen eye and unshakable demeanor allowed her
to do quite well in the local jumper shows.
At college, however, the instructors there were not as amused by Bella’s
antics as we were, resulting in switching disciplines, and ultimately ending up
in her not being used as much as we had hoped.
At one point, she sustained an unexplained lower forelimb injury and she
ultimately came back home to recuperate.
She was given time off to heal, and during
that time Sam had begun training with my Paint gelding, DannyBoy, who had just
come off of a two year layup from his own injury. During that time, I had been working with my recently
rehabbed OTTB mare Lola, and our horse calendars were pretty much full. Where Bella was concerned, the picture I had
in my mind when I thought of her was with her ears perpetually pinned flat
back, and teeth frequently bared. She
was a cranky mare. I had a soft spot for
her, but I never felt that my feelings were reciprocated.
Out of necessity, I had gained some
experience in the years previous, rehabilitating orthopedic injuries in my
horses. The time had come to begin that
with Bella. In my back yard for seven
years, save the four semesters at college in Ohio, I had nonetheless never
ridden her. I got on her in our ring and
she seemed fine and offered no surprises.
So, I loaded her on the trailer and we drove to Blydenburgh Park in
Smithtown for some light walk-therapy.
With a tiny bit of trepidation, I mounted
up and we hit the trail. She was a
natural, blazing through overgrowth with ears forward and alert, cupping
backward in acknowledgement of the slightest of aids. She was reluctant to get her feet wet or
muddy, so at first the puddles proved a challenge. But she was otherwise brave, willing and
interested. Not wanting to overdo things
on the first day, we headed back to the trailer after about a half hour of
walking. And then a crazy thing happened…
I untacked her and gave her a cool bath
with a sponge and a bucket, scraping the excess water off so the remaining
moisture could evaporate. I noticed that
unlike most horses, she seemed to want her face washed and actively encouraged
it. As is my routine, I brought out my
little picnic lunch and let her graze peacefully as I enjoyed it. She came over to investigate and gave me a
look with such love in her eyes that was so intense and so unexpected that it
gave me shivers. She licked the side of
my face and went back to grazing. I didn’t
see her ears pinned once during our excursion.
In subsequent days, the increased attention she paid me was at first
curious, then disarming. I was used to
her being one way, and now she was acting another.
In one afternoon, a new friendship was
formed. We had only needed some
one-on-one time to forge it. The love
had always been there; it was the “like” that we needed to work on. That can be hard when someone seems to not
like you.
Sometimes, a little adversity forces us to
work together. And we discover something
brand new, that has been there all along..
