|
President,
Darke County Senior Scribes
Horses I Have Known
By Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.
Our first horse was Queen, a Quarter Horse mare. We were living
in Versailles in 1963 and we arranged to board Queen on Wilbur and
Martha Long’s farm on Boyer Road. Queen was well trained and
seemed to be especially careful when we put a child on her back.
She never bucked or tried to run.
We bred Queen to a Quarter Horse stallion and got a beautiful colt,
which we named Prince, of course. At the appropriate time our
Vet. Dr. Willard Barga neutered him and we started riding him right
away, because he didn’t feel like bucking. Later we sold Prince.
Our second mare was Cocoa, a part Appaloosa who was smaller than Queen
but harder to control. Louise was riding her on Long’s farm when
something startled the mare and she threw Louise off right through a
barbed wire fence. Louise received a scalp laceration, but no
broken bones. One warm spring day I left the hospital at noon for
my Versailles office and decided to stop at the Long farm to get a
picture of Cocoa’s new foal, Cotiga. No one was at home but I
thought I could do this by myself.
I led Cocoa out of her stall and tied her to a door handle. The
foal stayed right beside her. While I was getting ready to take
the photo Cocoa pulled loose and ran down the road, with Cotiga right
beside her. Now what? I quickly saddled Queen and rode down
the road after Cocoa. I managed to round her up and chased her
back to the barn. Both mare and foal ran right back into the
barn, laughing all the way. I went home and showered.
My introduction to Tigala, an Arabian stallion, happened this
way. The late Dr. Wm. Elliott did not own horses, but one of his
patients did. When Dr. Elliott went to a medical meeting in
Miami, or elsewhere, he usually asked me to take his calls. And
something always happened. A 30 year old woman went to the ER
with an injured ankle. I was called and I ordered an X-ray.
While waiting for that to happen she showed me photos of Tigala, and I
was impressed.
The ankle injury was not serious, and the patient invited Louise and me
to her farm to see Tigala. We decided to ask him to produce some
half-Arabian foals with our mares. He was happy to oblige and
produced Cotiga and Cotina. I showed Cotiga, a colt, at halter
and won my only blue ribbon.
In 1969 we purchased a farm so we could spend more time with the
horses. Louise had grown up on a farm, but it was a new
experience for me. Our neighbor, Don Darding, did the farming and
I took care of the horses. We also had beef cattle.
In 1970 we purchased our first pure Arabian mare, Daarene. Her
first foal in ’71 was Gigi. Daarene was grey but Gigi was
brown when foaled but later turned grey. Other foals of Daarene
were Gay (’72), Ofir (’73), and Tez (’74).
Gay was a beautiful chestnut filly with a big blaze and lots of
“presence.” Meaning she knew she was good looking and always
demanded attention. I loaned her to a 4H girl to show at in a
riding contest. They did OK but Gay got impatient standing in
line so she reared up. The girl did not fall off, but neither did
she ride Gay again.
Ofir was sired by a famous Arabian stallion by the same name. We
had him broken to ride by a professional trainer, and he was fun to
ride. We could have kept him as a sire, but we realized that
there were plenty of other stallions around and we probably wouldn’t
really make any money. So we decided to give him to Heifer
International which sends all kinds of farm animals all over the
world. In Central America many of the people live in the
mountains with no cars. So their main mode of transportation is
by horseback. Ofir was sent to Nicaragua, to an Agricultural
School where I’m sure he was very happy.
Tez was a grey mare and the main story I remember about her was when
she became disoriented in a snow storm. She was about half way
down a long lane leading out to the woods, and she didn’t seem to know
her way back to the barn. So she started whinnying until I went
down the lane and led her back to the barn. Horses seem to know
when they need help.
One day I realized that Gigi had an umbilical hernia, and I decided to
perform a surgical repair. I had done hernia repair on humans, of
course, but never on a horse. I asked one of the hospital
surgical nurses to help me, and I begged a syringe and medicine from a
Vet friend. Sticking the jugular vein in a horse is no problem
because it is as big as a garden hose. We put a clean sheet on
the ground, injected the medicine, and down she went. Repairing
the hernia was no problem and she made a good recovery.
I could have been a Vet. Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.
|
|
|
<
|
