Excerpt
came to the conclusion that Harry either just didn’t know, or if
he knew, he certainly didn’t care about the pedigrees of the livestock.
Leaving Harry to saddle his next horse, Joel returned to the
round pen to start the afternoon’s work.
The sorrel filly was a sweetheart most of the time. Today was
no exception. You could tell that she was a kind horse, but perhaps
not as physically appealing as some of the three-year-olds. A
little long in the body and with a bit of a pencil neck, she wasn’t
about to win a halter class, but if it was a kind heart that you were
after, this was the horse. After a warm-up lope down the road and
back, Joel worked with her, guiding her around the arena. He
thought that some day this filly would make a heck of a western
pleasure horse. She was fancy enough to catch a judge’s eye, had a
beautiful jog, and, if the name of the class was any indication of
what the judges were looking for, she certainly would look like a
pleasure to ride.
Things went pretty much as expected on the first of the buckskin
geldings. He was showing some good promise, and if there
was one thing Joel remembered from his lessons as a boy, it was
not to push a horse too hard. Taking it easy on the gelding, the
horse gave him everything he asked for. After cooling the gelding
down, he swapped the saddle over onto his third and last horse of
the day.
This buckskin was special. He wasn’t big in height, maybe fifteen
hands’ high, but where he was big, no, massive would be a
better description, was across the chest. As Joel tightened the
cinch, he couldn’t help but think that if there ever was a horse
that looked like he pumped iron, this would be the one. This
gelding had been a bit less cooperative than the other horses in
Joel’s string; it was as if the buckskin wanted to show Joel who
was in charge.
Joel was tired and just didn’t feel like any more schooling for
the day so he thought he would head up into the pasture with
buckskin. In the past, he or Harry would ride along with an older,
well-trained horse when they took the three-year-olds up to
Libros Libertad 