Berners and horses

[Susan Bemus]

Don't have any now :( but it's fun to watch the Berners line up along the fence and play bow to the neighbor's horses.

I was as horse-crazy as many girls are when I was a kid, and about the first thing I did when I got my first job was to buy my own horse, a line-back dun called Babe. Babe was poorly broken and a poor choice for an inexperienced handler, but I loved her. She took to flinging herself over backward when she didn't want to be ridden, and on one occasion caught me underneath her. I fractured 2 vertebrae and dislocated both knees (and am paying for it now!) but it was still a wrench to sell Babe when I got married and moved to Los Angeles. At the same time I had Babe I also got Dixie, a POA/Welsh pony, for my younger sisters, and Dixie threw a Quarterhorse mix foal we called Beau. After moving back to Arizona I got a grey Thoroughbred cross named Wellington, a blue Quarterhorse called Sugar, and an Appaloosa called Jack. But our very best horse was a chestnut grade mare named Taco Belle, who was bombproof and the perfect all-around horse. My 5-year-old son learned to ride on Taco, and she'd stand perfectly still while he swung from the stirrup and saddle strings, and shinnied up her front leg to reach the saddle. Steve rode 4-H and gymkhana on Taco, my husband roped off her and worked cattle, and she was my parade and trail horse. She ran the barrels in under 17 seconds, but moved like a snail with a small child on her back and never let a kid fall off. She lived to nearly 40, and I miss her still. Wish I could afford to keep horses again, but I know I'd never find another as good as Taco.

Susan B. & menagerie :)