Top Tracy and One of Life’s Lessons

Each day for the fifteen years I raised Appaloosa horses, I called our summer-pastured
horses in for feeding by hollering, “Blackie, dinner!” The herd leader, Dakoto Blackie, was a
solidly-built sixteen-hand Appaloosa gelding with enough Thoroughbred in his ancestry to take
you anywhere, usually at a speed far greater than you planned on. Blackie had a heart of gold
and I trusted him to keep me safe, even at speeds that made the wind shred my hair.
Blackie’s buddy was a fourteen hand sorrel Quarter Horse gelding named Beeamigo.
Amigo was the old-style Quarter Horse, wiry and agile and even more kind than Blackie. Even
though Amigo was best pals with the herd boss, he was low man on the totem pole at feeding
time. He didn’t seem to mind being outranked by six mares, one of whom, Top Tracy, was the
lead mare. Tracy was the youngest of all the horses, but she was tough and no one except
Blackie ignored her demands. In the pasture, whatever Tracy wanted, Tracy got—-the deepest
shade, the most succulent grass, the first flat-out nap in the summer sunshine. Tracy wasn’t
nasty to either horses or people; she just worked to assure her rank in the herd. She was a
smooth riding horse who was just lazy enough that she was safe for my kids to ride. She had
great breeding and produced some fine, champion foals. We all liked Tracy even though she
sometimes sulked around in typical broodmare moodiness.
Our horse farm was relatively peaceful. As the years passed and the mares aged, I
stopped breeding them. And then came the day—the start of too many sad days—when I had to
let each horse go to his or her eternal pasture. Only Tracy was left and she was suddenly without
anyone to boss around except the barn cats. Since I was planning to move to a smaller home
with no barn, I found a nice boarding facility for Tracy that had good pastures so she could get
exercise if I couldn’t ride her.
My only problem with the barn was that Tracy and I were not into dressage like every
other boarder. In fact, we were doubly disgraced because I often rode Tracy—heaven forbid!—
Western. She had done very well in both English or Western pleasure classes, and even if she
wasn’t being shown any longer, I didn’t want her to forget all she’d learned over the years. Not
only did I have the nerve to ride Western, my horse was under seventeen hands! And not only
was Tracy “small” at fifteen hands, she was an Appaloosa, of all things! The dressage riders,
who were all easily twenty years younger than me, and some who were even younger than Tracy,
called her the Indian pony. I didn’t mind the good-natured ribbing Tracy and I got on occasion;
after all, she was a descendent of Chief Joseph’s band of Nez Perce horses, and she was small
compared to the Hanovarians and other warmbloods in the barn. In fact, standing next to one of
the Hanovarians made me feel as if I was eight years old again, holding the reins of my school
horse, Dixie Belle, waiting my turn to mount up for my lesson at Red Raider Camp (For people
who lived in Northeast Ohio, whether they rode or not, when I was a kid back in the ‘40s and
‘50s, if you loved horses, you went to Red Raider Camp). However, I digress.
Tracy and I took a lot of ribbing but for the most part we ignored it, at least Tracy did.
She only cared about being with other horses and in maintaining her rank in the herd, which, it
turned out, was Number One. She'd had an excellent teacher in Blackie and at this new barn she
wasted no time in putting her lessons into practice. What surprised me was that I seemed to be
the only human in the barn who noticed. It was a quiet joy made even more pleasurable by my
Loveman—Top Tracy

realization that while the dressage riders knew a great deal about the fine art of riding horses in
the arena, they sure didn’t know much about how to handle horses when they were on the horses’
turf.
Late one drizzly spring evening as I leaned on a fence rail in the gathering darkness,
feeling melancholy—missing my farm and Blackie, Amigo and my other horses—I noticed four
of the dressage riders slogging through the muddy pasture, attempting to catch their
uncooperative horses. It was a game the horses were winning and it was a treat to watch as the
horses put their dressage training to use in wheeling away at the last moment and doing side-
passes and other classical movements. The drenched on-foot riders didn’t see the magnificent
performance since they were behind the action. They also couldn’t see that the leader of this
great game of tag was Tracy, who cavorted in her own idea of dressage with the other horses
gaily following her.
The drizzle was beginning to soak through my coat as I leaned on the fence rail, and I
knew from my own experiences over the years, how miserable those soaked, horseless riders
were out there in the pasture. In another few minutes I took pity on them, and with Tracy’s
leadrope slung over my shoulder, I walked over to the pasture gate and hollered, “Blackie,
dinner!”
Within seconds, Tracy and her pasture pals were at the gate. It took several minutes for
the exhausted riders to stumble up to the group of quietly standing horses. When each rider had
clipped her leadrope to her respective horse’s halter, I clipped my leadrope onto Tracy’s halter
and sedately led her towards the barn. One of the riders asked, “What method did you use to
train Tracy to come so quickly?”
I chuckled, and I could swear Tracy did too. In fact, I was sure I saw Blackie and Amigo
duck around the corner of the barn, whinnying softly in pleasure. “It’s called real-life training,” I
replied, hiding my grin.
The next day there was a basket of apples and carrots in front of Tracy’s stall and a
thank-you note for me. And there were no more jokes about Tracy.