That’s Callie – pretty, witchy little Callie. We always had to watch her, because she kicked with little provocation; I never got nailed, but I was there for a couple of teenagers getting kicked or kicked at. (And trust me, a come to Jesus meeting was held immediately thereafter…) She was also a head flipper, although hers seemed to be stress rather than anything medically wrong; a few rides in the round pen without a bridle or with a rider willing to leave her mouth alone would fix her. She had that lovely Arabian trot and a pony’s walk and this little angry face that was really cuter than it had any right to be.

I actually kind of liked riding her, but on the ground, she was such a pain…

And then there’s miss Punky. As far as I know, she was never bred, and that’s a good thing, because everything I know about this twitchy little mare just screams “don’t breed me.” I already talked a bit about her neurotic personality. And… well… you can see what you’d have to work with pretty well in this photo. It doesn’t capture her charming tendency to throw her head up in the air and do her best upside-down-neck/llama impression. And she was a nose-bleeder – never huge amounts, but thin threads of pale reddish fluid were not uncommon, particularly after exercise or if she was left alone in the barn while her buddies were in the arena. We eventually started wiping her nose off when we noticed it; it was easier than explaining to the kids. (She did get checked out, and it was some sort of benign tumor, I believe? I don’t think I ever got specifics, or if I did, I can’t remember them.)

She could be a sweet girl, and I know she had issues in the past – when I first met her, she was too head-shy to put in cross-ties – but she’s also the only one of my instructor’s horses to ever try to nip me and the first one of her horses that made me eat dirt. That was the last fall before I lost my confidence entirely.

She always seemed very worried, especially around her eyes, even when she was being cool, calm, and collected. I wonder sometimes if she really should have been a lesson horse, but she was the beginner horse, and she usually did a good job keeping the younger kids on board, at least. It was just us bigger kids that had issues!