I had to say goodbye to my best friend Wicca today. How do you begin to describe a girl like her?
I first met Wicca in the spring of 1991. I was in Missouri getting certified for Centered Riding and as the program was wrapping up, I ask the Instructor if she knew of any good horses in the area that were for sale. I was just starting my ranch and needed some good kid broke horses. The idea of a gaited horse also intrigued me for my sister's sake. A bad fall from a horse when we were kids had left her with a bad back, so I thought a gaited horse may be just what she needed. She told me about a foxtrotter mare the local farrier owned, so I went to have a look.
The first time I saw Wicca, she was barreling down a gravel road, no shoes on and with a 300lb rider on her. She was covered in sweat and lame. After my initial shock, I remember thinking the most amazing thing about Wicca was how much she was built like a quarter horse, and not like the other foxtrotters I'd seen. She rubbed her sweaty head on me and looked in my eyes as if to say "Save Me!" so, how could I not?? I gave $1500 for her.
When hub came to pick her up, he was so mad at me for paying so much for an obviously foundered horse. "It's road founder" I said, "she'll heal". Took us 45 minutes to load Wicca, she'd never been trailored before. But, finally we got her home, hub shaking his head and complaining all the way.
When we got her home, it took us a good hour to get her out, she just kept wanting to bump her head on the roof, "Horse is stupid and lame" says hub as he sulked off. But, I knew differently, I knew she wasn't stupid, I'd seen the intelligence in her eyes.
I put her down in a muddy lot. In Iowa, in the springtime, this is just about anywhere, but I wanted her hooves in that cool mud. And it worked. Within a month, she was completely sound. My sister came to visit, "OMG! This is the horse, I want!" and she handed me the check;(Debbie and Wicca on our first brochure)Wicca was officially hers now.
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1991 was our first official season, and we were starting small with just lessons for the local Girl Scout camp. Of course, we did not have enough horses and I hesitated using Wicca. We had soon learned that Wicca was fast, very fast. Her foxtrot did not really fit into our English lessons, not to mention when you ask for a trot, her trot was 15mph :o) She was a go fast. However, we really had no choice so we used Wicca. She would accommodate the smallest or most awkward of riders. The guys in Missouri had bruised her mouth with a bit and she would forever prefer the hackmore Any girl scout who was lucky enough to get to ride her, soon learned to love her above all other horses because no matter how fast she went, she was smooth as silk, and in all the years we owned her, no one ever fell off Wicca.
That summer, my son worked on the ranch, he had outgrown his quarter pony, Star. While helping he kept noticing Wicca. He was growing into quite a big man and needed a big horse. Wicca was a big horse. He started riding her on trail rides, her speed and fearlessness making her the perfect "drag" horse. After that summer he was hooked and Wicca "officially" became his horse, much to my sister's chagrin. They battled all the years we owned her as to who "really" owned her, my sister or my son.
But, in reality, Wicca was everybody's horse. The instructors who worked for me loved doing the Tandem Bareback at the shows. Wicca would whiz around the quarter horses and Arabs at seemingly the speed of light. I loved listening to the idiots in the crowd wonder out loud about "what's wrong with that horse???" And I'd chuckle and turn around and tell them, "Not a darn thing, she's a foxtrotter, haven't you ever seen a foxtrotter?" Well, apparently they hadn't. They even showed her in halter but the judges could barely figure her out either. Wicca was a good sport, and took it all in stride.
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It wasn't until our second season that we found out how special Wicca really was. I'd been to Cheff Center and had become certified to do Therapeutic riding. A children's rehabilatation center in Des Moines ask us to provide a riding program for their kids. This would mean a 45 mile weekly trip to them. These children were so sick that they could only ride with the use of what is called a backrider (a person who rides behind them bareback, holding them on). In order for a horse to be a safe backriding horse, the horse must be extremely heavily muscled to carry the weight of both the rider and the backrider, and must have a long enough back, for both to sit without either sitting on the kidneys. This was Wicca. However, would she be too fast and would she take the weekly loading in the trailer? I was very apprehensive about that first day. But, I didn't need to be. It was as if Wicca "knew" what her job was, and loaded like a pro. And when we loaded the child and backrider (of course after she had given the customary snuff :o) she walked like we had never seen her walk before in little half steps. And this is the way she would always walk anytime she carried a backrider.
Wicca also went on to an award-winning career in our Equestrian Special Olympics. She always won the barrels and the poles (Much to the chagrin of those who had to try and sidewalk her :o) She was fast but she was smooth a winning combination.
When we introduced camp in 1993, she quickly became the favorite there, so much so, there were often fights about who got to ride her. We offered a camp called Little Bit of Everything. The highlight, the musical presentation at the end of the week for Parents night. I can still see her hooves pounding as she came running in to the medley of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Wicca, however, was not strictly country, she also had a wild side. Above, she and her costumed rider preform to the tune of Mission Impossible.
But finally, the Wicca that I loved the most was the one only her and I knew. Those quiet and precious times that can only be shared by a rider and her horse. The rides out to pick up black walnuts and left over corn every fall; looking for mushrooms in the spring.
Wicca saved my life twice. The first time I was riding drag on a trail ride, bringing the kids back up along a highway, very dangerous. It was my and Wicca's job to ride close to the edge of the highway, hopefully to make the cars move out a little. Everything was fine, and a truck had moved out to the center line to give us more space, when out of nowhere a green ranchero tore between the truck and me. Wicca bolted forward and to the side, not only putting me out of harms way, but pushing the other horses down into the ditch. No one was hurt. It was a miracle. Later when I looked her over, I saw the graze of where the car had gotten her. I'm still watching for that car, to this day.
The other time, Wicca saved my life, was a day we'd gone for a solitary trail ride. Now, anyone who knows me can tell you that I am not a trail person; I can't read trails; I can't read surfaces; I'm just pretty bad at it. We had rode out into the woods, to an area I was unfamilar with. We'd had a good ride: saw a couple of huge deer and it was time to come home. It was getting late, so I decided to take what looked like a short cut. As it was fall, leaves covered the ground. We got so far and Wicca balked. Wicca never balked; but she was doing it now. So, like an idiot, instead of "listening" to her, I pushed her on. She took two steps forward and sunk to her belly. My heart sank. A normal horse would have gotten hysterical, at this point and probably gotten us stuck even deeper, but not Wicca. Wicca simply turned her head and looked at me as if to say, "Happy now?" I didn't know what to do, so I sat very still. All of a sudden I felt the power of a Mack truck engage through her back and rear end. She very slowly and meticulously pulled her front legs out: did a semi roll back getting her legs planted back on solid ground. Once again, she laid those soulful eyes upon me. "Ok, have it your way." I said, and with a toss of her head, she took me safely home. This was the Wicca I knew and loved.
She had spirit. It's a lucky angel who is riding Wicca now, calling out to the other angels:
"Eat my dust!"