Swept from the corners of my mind…
Some friends sent their mare for training. She came home in the dead of winter fluffy, fat, and happy — and then went into labor during a blizzard. None of the humans had realized she’d jumped the fence to meet the stud at the trainer’s. The small black foal was whisked into the warm garage, and the owners proudly announced their new dark bay filly. The thing about horses, though, is that very dark babies often turn gray. And when we looked closer, we realized they had also misidentified the sex. Their “filly” was actually a gray colt — impressive, considering they hadn’t expected anything.
He grew well, with good bloodlines: foundational Quarter Horse stock on one side and running Quarter Horses on the other. Friendly as he was, he was still a stallion, and his owners didn’t want a stud. At two years old, they sold him to us, and he arrived with the name Total Identity Crisis — “Crisis” for short — and a pleasant, easygoing attitude.
While still young, he ran a stick straight into his eye. My horse racing husband used the “sugar method,” which sounds made‑up but apparently isn’t, blowing fine-grained sugar into the wound each day to gently wear down the ulcerated tissue. Amazingly, Crisis healed with perfect eyesight. Crisis averted.
He became a father next, siring several foals and proving himself a gentle, attentive dad. Around then, I decided I wanted to ride him. One day, while tacking him up in the main pen with thirty horses milling around, I had a wild thought: I should just get on for his first ride. So I did — riding an untrained stallion through his own band of mares like an underqualified rodeo queen.
Naturally, that was when my phone rang. I’d been waiting several days for that call. I fished the phone out of my jeans and took the call right there, sitting on an unbroke stallion in an open pasture with no fences. It was nerve wracking, and yes, I felt like I was in a bit of a crisis — but apparently my phone plan mattered more than my survival. Nothing went wrong. Crisis averted.
Eventually, we decided to stop making babies and had him gelded. He mellowed even more. He didn’t test fences, though he’d wander through an open gate if he found one. I even drove him with a little two-person cart until life got busy and I fell ill for a few years. He still got regular care and stayed happy with his girls.
Recently, I worked the horses entirely on my own for the first time in three years. Everyone needed worming — a five‑minute job, in theory. Betty, the first horse, disagreed. She dodged the rope, shoved her head out of reach, and when a clump of churned mud caught my shoe, I fell hard on my hands and knees. I was coated in mud from toes to face, achieving the exact look of someone who has lost control of her entire life. After two hours, four horses were done. The last was Crisis.
Getting him into the pen was easy — oats are his best friend. Exhausted, I put him in the chute but forgot the cardinal rule: lock the gate. When I stepped up to his head, he noticed the chute, decided to see if he could push the gate open (he could), and walked straight into the yard.
Cue the chase.
He wasn’t running away; he was just delighted to be free and grazing fresh grass. My short legs were doing their best impression of speed, which fooled absolutely no one — least of all Crisis. Just as I neared him, my eager black Shepherd “helped” by startling him. I shoved the dog in the car. Then the Rat Terrier arrived, yipping like she’d been hired specifically to sabotage me, chasing Crisis across the road and into the neighbor’s field.
I jumped in my car, but by the time I turned around, he was gone. I warned the neighbors about a potential trespasser and they kindly offered to help hunt. When we returned, Crisis was already back in the yard, looking smug in that way only a horse who has caused chaos can. We parked vehicles across the main gate and formed a human loop. Glenn, the neighbor’s dad, walked right up and slipped a rope around Crisis’s neck. Crisis surrendered instantly. I wormed him, and he was back in the pen within minutes.
Yesterday, I went to water and couldn’t find Crisis anywhere. A pony was missing too, and the mares were calling. Assuming he’d slipped out somehow, I searched the road, the perimeter, and the brush. Nothing.
I sent an urgent message to my three kids. My Wakaw offspring, ManSon, arrived early afternoon and eventually found Crisis behind the old hay pen. His right hind leg was straddling two taut strands of barbed wire. If he hadn’t already been gelded, he would have been now — courtesy of that barbed wire. He was scraped and swollen but hadn’t fought the wire — likely what saved his life.
It took heavy wire cutters, careful maneuvering, and a lot of prayers to free him; he stood without pulling, full of trust. His tail was a tangled disaster of knots and blood. ManSon led him slowly toward the pens; stiff but walking. Old barbed wire carries nasty bacteria, so we put him in the chute for a cold-water rinse to clean up his swollen thigh and see how deep the cuts were. Crisis hates cold water — he’s a “hot dude,” and he insists everyone know it. I took photos and drove to the vet for antibiotics and a discussion on whether he needed to be seen in person.
At this moment Total Identity Crisis — whose name is now just Total Crisis — is standing comfortably in his pen with daily hose showers, oral meds mixed with sweet oats, and his own private bale of hay. He won’t be pulling the cart anytime soon, but he’s happily back to bossing the herd over the fence.
As for the second missing animal? Andrew found the pony in another section of the pen. Everyone is officially accounted for, and I am over this crisis and any future ones he’s planning. Though I do love my Crisis.
Cathy Bendle finds humour in the quirks of everyday life, from training teachers to dodging housework. When not writing, she’s either laughing at her pets, frantically Googling for her work assignments, or playing on her iPad.
