For Glue - An Under-Horse Story

He had a coat like dust, and his drooping head suggested he knew it. It didn't even shine under the bright, auction-house lights.

Maybe that was why nobody bought him. Why he was still there after the last bid had been called. Why the nearby truck growled, waiting, to take him and the others away.

He wasn't alone, which was a comfort of a sort. Horses are not built to be alone. They aren't wired for it.

A man came. The horse hardly flicked an ear at him. Men were always coming and going. It was what they did. Scurrying about like blobs. Some of the blobs brought him breakfast, and some kicked him, but they were all blobs.

"I'll take that one," the man-blob was saying.

"Sure thing," another man-blob said, "For eighty bucks."

"This one got a name?" asked the new man-blob.

The other man-blob shrugged, and that was that.

These words didn't mean much to the horse. He did feel an uncoiling in his belly to be going with this new man-blob, away from that Truck. He got the feeling that he had just escaped the jaws of something, and that was rather a good feeling.

Sparing little thought for the beasts still being loaded into the crouching, snarling Truck, the horse picked up his feet and went with his man-blob. He was already shaping up to be quite a fine blob. He called the horse "Snowman", and told him he was a very fine horse indeed.

Snowman enjoyed being told this. Even though he didn't know the individual words, he knew danged well that he was getting a compliment, and that was fine by him. He liked the name, as well. Snowman. It was a good, solid sort of name. It probably meant something very majestic, and he wore it accordingly.

He was a good horse, more loyal than most, and terribly hard-working. Man-blob tasked him with the job of teaching people to ride. This was a tricky thing, because human beings of all ages tend to be a bit stupid. But Snowman was patient and skilled, and he did very well.

Then one day, for some reason, Man-blob made a terrible mistake. He sent Snowman to live with a neighbouring man-blob.

Snowman had no way of knowing that Man-blob had done anything so crude as selling him. To his mind, a mistake had been made, and he just had to show Man-blob that so he could do humanish things, and put it right.

As mentioned, humans are not very bright. Snowman once again demonstrated his patience and ingenuity in coaxing people to be better than they were. This involved leaping over the fences that ringed him in on the neighbouring Man-blob's property. Then, with a snort, tail kinked up over his rump, he'd canter back to his own stable.

He had to do this several times. Now, don't get it wrong: he was fond of his Man-blob for rescuing him from the jaws of whatever-it-was. Man-blob was also the timely sort when it came to things like breakfasts and such, and worthy of high regard for that alone. Still, he was, after all, only a human, cursed with a human's dull wits.

Snowman didn't mind. He quite enjoyed the escapes, truth be told. Those fences loomed, laughing at him, and then he sure put them in their place alright. He was always very pleased with himself when he clattered, grinning, into his own yard.

Man-blob got the message eventually. The penny dropped. Slowly, but it dropped. That horse belongs here, he realised. He's a clever beast, he realised that as well. And by gor, he fairly flies over those fences. He noticed that part very much.

So: Snowman went home. Did he stop leaping fences? He did not. Man-blob gave him ample opportunity to indulge in this new-found hobby. Snowman's love-hate relationship with fences was encouraged and honed to a bright sheen. He eventually did this jumping malarkey in front of a lot of Blobs, and they gave him ribbons and shiny trophies for it.

And to think, he was nearly sold for glue.

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Thank you for reading!

Based on a true story

The bones of this story are true. I might have embellished or imagined some bits.

There was a real horse called Snowman who was going to be slaughtered. Harry de Leyer bought Snowman for $80. He later sold him to a neighbour, but Snowman was having none of that, thank you very much, and kept jumping fences to go back home. de Leyer took him back and trained him for showjumping. Snowman took to it like, well like a horse who was already pretty darned fond of leaping over fences. He went on to win several championships, including the Triple Crown. I'm reliably informed by horsey types that that's pretty good. He died in 1974. Mr de Leyer died in 2021.

I'm sorry, Mr de Leyer, for calling you a blob. This is how I imagine most horses view most people, and no reflection on your character or horsemanship. When I meet an especially bright animal, I always think they have a wryness about them, as if they're cleverer than they're letting on, and humouring us a fair amount.