# The Lady and the Stallion.



## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

In 1996 I was working for the county and living on a ranch in southern Arizona. One of the Deputies I worked with asked me if I would help him put a halter on his neighbors stud horse. I told him I would come over and give him a hand.

This lady had always wanted a wild horse to train herself. She went to the auction and bought a five year old paint stud, that had never been handled. I didn't know what her background was with horses, but she couldn't halter or even catch her horse.

During the days before we were to catch this horse, the Deputy told me some of the story. The first owner had gotten the horse as a weanling mustang stud colt from the BLM. He had been kept in a small pen and never handled. They finally took him to the auction, and this neighbor lady bought him.

So, on my day off I loaded a big stout mule that I used to pony horses with, and hauled him over to my buddies place. The properties were two acre ranchetts. It was mostly open desert, with a lot of rocks and cactus. He jumped in my truck and we drove over to his neighbors place.

When we pulled into the yard my first thought was, how had I gotten into this mess. The house was a 1970's something single wide, with a lean to off the back. The corral was a 50 x 50 ft chicken wire death trap. This big old paint stud was standing in the middle of the pen snorting and giving us the evil eye.

The lady came out of the trailer, and my friend introduced us. She started going on about how beautiful her horse was, and didn't I think he was the most majestic thing I had ever seen. I asked her if she had a halter. She went into the lean to, and came out with a pink show halter that might have fit a small Shetland pony.

I suggested that we use one of my halters, and that she might have to go buy a larger halter. I unloaded my mule, and saddled him up. By this time the stud was getting pretty worked up. He was running up and down the fence, and acting like he wanted to come over it.

I took one of my catch ropes out of the truck, and threw it over the saddle horn. I cinched up my saddle real tight, and stepped up. My mule had been down this road before, and he let us know that he was ready. He let out a long loud bray and started to dance in a circle, never really fighting the bit, just letting me know he was ready. I suggested to the young lady that she should go back in the house, and told my buddy to open the gate.

My friend unlatched the gate, and the stud charged at the same time. The stud knocked the gate open, and my buddy jumped back out of the way. The stud pinned his ears and charged the mule. I swung my rope and hollered. The stud turned and kicked out, and my mule turned and faced him as my rope settled around his neck.

The stud charged again, and I slapped him in the face with the coiled rope. The stud whirled and ran away. When he came to the end of the rope, the first thing to hit the ground was his ears. As he turned away I had taken two dallies around my saddle horn, and my mule set back his rump nearly touching the ground.

I took a half hitch over my dallies, ran down the rope and grabbed his nose. I sat across his neck and pulled his nose into my lap. I called out to my buddy to bring me a scotch rope from my truck. We had a little go around there in the dirt. But soon had his hind legs tied up, and his head tied back. The lady came running up, screaming at me not to hurt her baby. She said that if I killed her horse she was going to sue me. I offered her .68 cents a pound for him, and told her I would take him direct to the killers.

When that big son of a gun hit the ground he was a stud, when he stood up ten minutes later he was a gelding. And he was wearing a halter.


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## 1sttimemom (Mar 1, 2005)

Yes, sadly some people "baby" their horses right into the kill pen. I don't believe in being cruel or intentionally hurting an animal, but a quick pop on the nose to stop a nippy yearling is so much easier (and in long run kinder) than ignoring the behavior for the next 2 years until he turns into an actual aggressive biting horse.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Momma horses don’t put up with bad behavior from their foals. Humans should emulate them.


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## GTX63 (Dec 13, 2016)

Years ago when we started raising animals I told my wife she would do well not to go with me to the sale barn.
All life is precious to her and to this day I cannot butcher anything if she is around.
Grabbing a goat by the horns, carrying your runaway poultry back to the coop 4 at a time upside down, dragging an obstinate pig by the hind legs while they squeal and squall and cry bloody murder took some getting used to for her, and she is a country gal.


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## G. Seddon (May 16, 2005)

muleskinner2, you write a good story!!! 

If only people would have their animals castrated when foals, life would be simpler....but that wouldn't be nearly so interesting to read! Give that mule of yours an apple!


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## ijon1 (Feb 27, 2014)

1sttimemom said:


> Yes, sadly some people "baby" their horses right into the kill pen. I don't believe in being cruel or intentionally hurting an animal, but a quick pop on the nose to stop a nippy yearling is so much easier (and in long run kinder) than ignoring the behavior for the next 2 years until he turns into an actual aggressive biting horse.


A horse is way to big of a animal to be spoiled. We are not talking a kitty cat we are talking on the average a thousand pound animal.


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## aoconnor1 (Jun 19, 2014)

Lol!! It was a sorry sack of horse poop that didn’t geld that boy as a colt when he was able to be handled more efficiently. I don’t let a colt go past a yearling without gelding him, even great looking colts with good lines. 

I love your story muleskinner2!! Sad the stud didn’t get a home that would use him, but if that lady took care of him otherwise then it’s all good. Hope she could catch him once in a while to keep his feet decent.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

G. Seddon said:


> muleskinner2, you write a good story!!!
> 
> If only people would have their animals castrated when foals, life would be simpler....but that wouldn't be nearly so interesting to read! Give that mule of yours an apple!


Amos has been gone for ten years. Every time I walk out to the barn I expect him to come running up to have his ears scratched. He was almost thirty when he died.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

aoconnor1 said:


> Lol!! It was a sorry sack of horse poop that didn’t geld that boy as a colt when he was able to be handled more efficiently. I don’t let a colt go past a yearling without gelding him, even great looking colts with good lines.
> 
> I love your story muleskinner2!! Sad the stud didn’t get a home that would use him, but if that lady took care of him otherwise then it’s all good. Hope she could catch him once in a while to keep his feet decent.


I never cut a stud until they are four or five years old. But they are broke, and can be handled and ridden. I like a big thick neck on a horse. I can't stand a thin necked spindly gelding.

I ended up taking the paint home with me, and rode the dickens out of him for two months. The last I heard she was using him to run barrels.


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## aoconnor1 (Jun 19, 2014)

I cut mine at yearling or slightly earlier if they start acting studdy at an younger age (I had a colt licking hocks when he was 9 months old, cut him at 10 months), but I run my herd together and can't have them breeding indiscriminately or fighting. I don't have a thin necked horse here though, so cutting at 1 hasn't hurt that thick neck look. It's a personal preference on age to cut.


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## Alder (Aug 18, 2014)

Given that sort of "cluster****, I'd frankly never have risked my own or my mule's hide.
Those situations either call for a rifle loaded with a dart-full of Rompun, or one loaded with a more conventional projectile.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

Alder said:


> Given that sort of "cluster****, I'd frankly never have risked my own or my mule's hide.
> Those situations either call for a rifle loaded with a dart-full of Rompun, or one loaded with a more conventional projectile.


There was no real risk involved to me or my mule, we had done this kind of thing many times. We used to rope wild cattle in brush so thick you couldn't see twenty feet. And then lead them five or six miles to the trailer.


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## lmrose (Sep 24, 2009)

muleskinner2 said:


> In 1996 I was working for the county and living on a ranch in southern Arizona. One of the Deputies I worked with asked me if I would help him put a halter on his neighbors stud horse. I told him I would come over and give him a hand.
> 
> This lady had always wanted a wild horse to train herself. She went to the auction and bought a five year old paint stud, that had never been handled. I didn't know what her background was with horses, but she couldn't halter or even catch her horse.
> 
> ...



I really liked your story muleskinner ! When we raised a young stallion born on our farm; the first thing done was to castrate him as soon as he was old enough. The second thing before he got too big Bill upsided him and laid him on the ground on his side and held his head back so he couldn't get up. That established who was boss. Training continued from there and the horse respected his master and likewise the master the horse.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

lmrose said:


> I really liked your story muleskinner ! When we raised a young stallion born on our farm; the first thing done was to castrate him as soon as he was old enough. The second thing before he got too big Bill upsided him and laid him on the ground on his side and held his head back so he couldn't get up. That established who was boss. Training continued from there and the horse respected his master and likewise the master the horse.


When I have a colt born on my place, I halter break them when they are two or three days old. At four or five days old they will lead, and you can pick up all four feet. At two weeks old they have been sacked out, and are broke to hobble. Five or ten minutes each day is all the time it takes.


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## Wolf mom (Mar 8, 2005)

muleskinner2 said:


> When I have a colt born on my place, I halter break them when they are two or three days old. At four or five days old they will lead, and you can pick up all four feet. At two weeks old they have been sacked out, and are broke to hobble. Five or ten minutes each day is all the time it takes.


In addition, I trailer break them .....never know when an emergency arises.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

I have an old stock trailer parked in the corral, with the door tied open. I feed them in the trailer. They soon teach themselves to load, and have no fear of trailers.


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## hiddensprings (Aug 6, 2009)

Great story! And you are the Marlboro man! (That’s a compliment!). This is why I rarely go riding with others. I’ve been kicked, bit, and had heads thrown by crap horses who’s owners tell me how sweet their “babies” are. I love horses but mine knew their were consequences for bad behavior. My farrier loved coming to my barn to shoe; I had no problem with him giving a misbehaving horse an attitude adjustment.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

Just ran onto this thread yesterday. I vote with Skinner all the way. Much of what he recites reminds me of the days when I read of a fellow hopping his horse into a freight car in Austin, Tex, gettng off in far S. Texas, burning out an abandoned adobe shack to clear out the snakes and varmints, camping near the water hole and eventually snaking two big steers out of the hrush. He then bought a mule from the nearest village, roped the steers to the mule and dragged them to market. Way back during the depression---rancher died and his widow sold the cattle but her old retainer on the place told her there were two they could not drive out. She sold those two to the cowboy "range delivery". 

My father worked cattle off a horse but by the time I was of riding age work horses and mules had been "tractored out". I never roped even a calf---pens and chutes were much easier on men and cattle. Pig hunting acquaintances in Ok and here in Ark still ride mules trained to jump fences.

All this was Txas,Ok and Ark; I have no idea what the rest of the world is dong, but I do know that a bad horse is dangerous; I once bought a small place where the owner had been kicked to death by a horse. Took her four days to die. Who wants that---either cure the bad behavior or send them to the killer.

I don't understand breeding horses for meat? Is there a premium over beef? Seems like the gestation period would favor cattle over horses. I know horses will browse vegetation cattle won't touch. Ive seen horse pasture stripped even of tree bark---) but what other reasons? The foals resulting from premarin production were a by-product, not an enterprise.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

Macrocarpus said:


> ride mules trained to jump fences.


It's called "**** jumping." All of my mules will jump a fence if needed. I throw a jacket or slicker over the top wire, and stand to one side. We can usually do this faster than opening a gate. As for eating horses, in many parts of the world horse is the only "beef" they have ever eaten. In eastern Europe cows are for milking, and old horses get eaten. They don't eat meat as much as Americans do, once or twice a week in a stew is normal. In China, horses and donkeys are the only meat some people ever eat in their life.


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## Macrocarpus (Jan 30, 2018)

muleskinner2 said:


> It's called "**** jumping." All of my mules will jump a fence if needed. I throw a jacket or slicker over the top wire, and stand to one side. We can usually do this faster than opening a gate. As for eating horses, in many parts of the world horse is the only "beef" they have ever eaten. In eastern Europe cows are for milking, and old horses get eaten. They don't eat meat as much as Americans do, once or twice a week in a stew is normal. In China, horses and donkeys are the only meat some people ever eat in their life.


I was in OK when the do-gooders put a stop to horse slaughter in the US. The value of horses went thru the floor. People were advertising give-aways and others just turned their horses loose into the corps lands in the river bottoms.


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## muleskinner2 (Oct 7, 2007)

Macrocarpus said:


> I was in OK when the do-gooders put a stop to horse slaughter in the US. The value of horses went thru the floor. People were advertising give-aways and others just turned their horses loose into the corps lands in the river bottoms.


I remember. The bottom dropped out of the market. Good ranch horses, that you could rope off of, and work cattle, were selling for two hundred and fifty dollars. And the killer plants in Mexico would buy everything that came through the sale. The American do-gooders are too stupid to realize that all of the killer horses would be going to Mexico. Which is where they go today.


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## Irish Pixie (May 14, 2002)

muleskinner2 said:


> I remember. The bottom dropped out of the market. Good ranch horses, that you could rope off of, and work cattle, were selling for two hundred and fifty dollars. And the killer plants in Mexico would buy everything that came through the sale. The American do-gooders are too stupid to realize that all of the killer horses would be going to Mexico. Which is where they go today.


Or they'd go to Canada from northern areas. Banning slaughter was a stupid move, and horses suffered for it.


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## [email protected] (Sep 16, 2009)

back in the early 1950's there were a few fox or mink farms in the area. they would haul horses in from out west by the box car loads. A few farmers still used horses, even though they also had tractors. the farmers would hear of a new shipment of horses and to to the fur farms and pick out what horses they wanted to buy. there were even horses less than a year old in the loads.
My wife's father never had a tractor. He had a team until the early sixties. then one died, the other got sent to slaughter and her dad quit farming..
as a kid I drove a 4 horse hitch (side by each) pulling a spring tooth drag. I read comic books as I was dragged across the field.. I remember when I was about 12 yrs old they would set up 4 draft horses, each with a walk behind cultivator.. put the smaller kids on the horse to steer it and us older kids got the honor of walking behind the cultivators.
......jiminwaUsAu.......


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