An Incident Involving a Horse

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

Of the editorial page staff

Published February 25, 1961

   THIS PIECE should be reserved for Own Your Own Horse week, National Saddle and Bridle week or Be Kind to Old Paint week. But I don't know when any of these observances fall and haven't the energy to find out. I have an irrepressible urge to write about horses, however, and one horse in particular.

   Old Fox went to the glue works long ago and was past his prime when Pop bought him about 1910 to transport us about the countryside on Sunday afternoons and for hunting and fishing trips. He was an unpredictable beast and reluctant to pull a buggy unless he was headed home. He could be gentle as a kitten, but had these benevolent seizures only occasionally. His moods usually ranged from mean to impossible.

   IN THIS WAY he resembled his master. In fairness to my sire, however, he was gentle oftener than the horse was. When both got mean simultaneously they created a scene that sent kids and chickens scurrying from the barnyard.

   Old Fox was a flinty-eyed sorrel about 17 hands high. There was a big knot behind his left ear where a previous owner had belted him one with a club. The abuse the old horse got before he came to us perhaps explained his suspicion of the human race.

   Pop didn't let his children ride Old Fox until they'd done their apprenticeship on a buckskin pony which arrived one day complete with saddle and bridle and guaranteed to be gentle. Baldy was gentle to the point of immobility. Due to the infirmities of age he could not be pushed into more than a leisurely walk and unless the rider had the strength to pull his nose out of the grass by the roadside and quirt him diligently he wouldn't move at all.

   Pop finally consented to let my brother, a more daring spirit than I, get up on Old Fox. The horse was on his good behavior, for a wonder, and galloped around the back lot with an air of sardonic amusement. The first time my older sister got on his back, however, he pitched her into the rutabagas.

   THE MOST memorable scene starring Old Fox was brought on by another horse, the fictional "Black Beauty." Pop read a couple of chapters of the book each evening to the family and finally was mellowed into one of the most foolhardy acts of his life.

   Black Beauty made quite a point of the evils of bridle blinders, those leather shields which cut off the wearer's lateral vision. They were a dirty trick, Black Beauty said in effect. A horse had as much right to untrammeled vision as a person. A straight-ahead-only view wasn't enough.

   So Pop cut the blinders off the bridle. The following Sunday afternoon he hitched the horse to the buggy and we all got aboard for the shortest ride in history. It ended almost as soon as it began.

   POP CLUCKED at his charger and Old Fox groaned into motion. Then, out of the tail of his eyes, he saw the buggy following him and exploded. His fright was appalling to behold--particularly to those in the buggy. After a couple of fast trips around the lot, accompanied by terrified snorts, he bucked his way free to our vast relief.

   Then Pop, livid with fury and intent on disciplinary action, grabbed the whip and headed for the horse. Mother restrained him. She said he shouldn't hold Old Fox responsible for something he'd brought on himself. If he insisted on blaming a horse, she said, he should blame Black Beauty.

   Pop saw the point and spared his horse, but he got revenge on Black Beauty. He read no more of the book. None of us had the courage to suggest that he go on with the story.

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