By Peter Christensen

Op-Ed Commentary

“It’s not her heart, Lord, it’s her mind
She didn’t mean to be unkind
Why she even woke me up to say goodbye” –  Recorded by Gerry Lee Lewis

It was an equine menagerie, 40 horses on scrub land beside a slough, an old house moved in from the nearby city, corrals, riding ring and stained plywood barns; three kids in school, him working at the liquor store in town.

He owned two thoroughbred studs off the track for which he charged stud fees and bred to five retired racing mares for the colts trained for the track.  The rest of the horses they bought at the monthly horse auction; horses that for one reason or another were bound for France or dog food.

The ‘rescue’ horses weren’t old or sore or even mean, they were unwanted. The skill was to pick the good ones. He was good at that, his work as a trainer at the track taught him to see talent and if talent and price connected, they bought.

They would haul them home, calm them down enough their kids could ride them. The best ones, the “prospects,” she sold to pony club riders. Two rescued greyhounds, a mutt, a dozen barn cats, chickens and rabbits completed the picture.

She came from an upper-class background; they met him through their love of horses. It became a mutual dream to own a stable from which to raise, train and sell horses. They had savings, enough to get set up but keeping the stables going was a struggle, his bi-weekly pay from the liquor store barely paid for feed and groceries.

As the stress increased, he numbed it with increasing amounts of alcohol; he became mean and angry when drunk, which was a lot of time. At one of our afternoon coffee-visits she was covered in bruises. She said it was an accident with loading but you could sense it was something else.

Somehow, they kept the whole show going, living from paycheck to paycheck, buying just enough hay, gas and groceries to get through the week.

One day at the auction a tall, good looking, dark bay mare came through. It was obvious she was well bred, even had a fancy name, Lonesome Road. How Lonesome ended up at a meat auction was anybody’s guess?

She’d seen Lonesome pacing in the holding pens behind the auction arena, recognized her conformation and decided to buy her, borrowed the money from her father. None of the meat buyers wanted her or at least if they did, they knew enough about horses to feel bad about a fine animal going for meat, so they let her bid alone.

She took Lonesome home for four hundred dollars. Next month a tall gelding entered the arena, Ben was17 hands and came with a reputation for refusing jumps, was labelled a failed show jumper; she bought him for $300.

The college offered a summer course in dressage and show jumping with the goal of the best entering the Summer Games. She signed up Lonesome Road for dressage and Ben for show jumping. She reasoned participation would be good for their young rider horse business and less risky than starting race horses.

Every morning for six weeks, after the homeplace critters were fed and watered, he’d been given his breakfast and the kids on the school bus, she hauled Ben and Lonesome to the college.

He did not know she was attending as she was home before dinner. When she signed up for the Summer Games jumping and dressage competition, and took second place, instead of being surprised and proud of her, he was pissed.

She had excelled in the horse business and he was failing. His drinking out of control, the abuse became physical. It was not long after she won the awards that we saw her so beat up.

They’d been together for 15 years; she gave it a good try! Over the next year, she moved out, one piece of furniture and picture at a time. He was so morose and drunk he didn’t even notice the bare patches on the walls.

She sold Lonesome and Ben and put the money down on an apartment near the college, her plan to finish her degree, get a teaching certificate. By the time the kids were out of school at the end of June the apartment was set up and she was registered for the fall semester.

One fine July morning she did the usual chores, put the kids in the car, went into the house where he sat over the breakfast she had prepared for him, said, “I’m out of here” and walked out.

– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley based writer and poet.

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