Rusty: The Kid Horse.
I think every ranch has a designated "kid horse." That horse is usually the kindest. The gentlest. Bomb proof. The horse you can put anyone on. The horse you trust. Our designated "kid horse" was Rusty.
Rusty was a quarter horse with a bit of Arabian in her. Born a sorrel, Rusty then turned all white. Rusty was a good horse, and for the most part she was gentle, but she had just a little bit of a wild streak in her, maybe that was the Arabian blood.
Now Rusty was a really slow walker. The slowest on the ranch. My personal opinion is that her slow walking led to her classification as "kid horse." I think none of the grown ups wanted to ride her. No one likes to ride the slowest walker, so the kids rode her.
Rusty crow-hopped, bucked, reared and shied. She was crafty. While acting mild-mannered and innocent, she would look for opportunities to buck us off.
Once, I jumped on her bareback after catching her in the pasture. (She would always try to nip your butt if you were getting on bareback so you had to be fast.)
She had just a halter on, and that was generally not a problem. I was lazily riding her along, after all, it was Rusty. We came to a creek a few feet wide and suddenly she just got it into her head to go and she jumped the darn thing. A big jump. It was probably the first and only time she jumped that creek. Normally she'd just walk right through it. I'm convinced she knew that I wasn't really paying attention, not riding like I should have been, and knew I'd go flying if she took a big jump, which I did. And I didn't land in the creek. I landed on the bank. I broke my arm that day, but I learned a big Rusty lesson. But Rusty wasn't done.
She nearly killed us all one summer.
As kids, our job on the ranch was to exercise the horses, so we would go out to the pasture to catch Rusty and other horses we'd ride that day. We'd carry big buckets of grain and halters. Rusty liked grain, but she didn't like getting caught. That summer she started pinning her ears back and running us over in the pasture. She would barrel right at us. As soon as we'd drop to the ground she'd leave us alone and turn her attention to eating the grain. If any of us got up she'd charge again. Ears back, heels flying. She'd take some serious shots at us. If you imagine a 1400 pound horse charging at you when you're an 80 pound kid you'll realize it's not a situation that's much fun.
Soon enough the other horses were doing the same. It got to the point we were risking our lives every time we caught horses in that pasture. Rusty was the ring leader.
To this day, when I see a white horse in a field I wonder if that's a "Rusty." In the end, I can't help but love each and every horse we've had through the years, each with their own personalities. And maybe, every rider needs a Rusty at some point in time. Maybe it's those horses with lots of character that build the character in each of us.
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