Nadira

Nadira was my first horse, and first rescue. The first time I saw her, she was skin and bones. Literally, I could see every rib and her hip bones protruded sharply. She had no muscle tone and she just looked...sad, deflated. My parents and I had been looking for a horse for me for a while by the time I met Nadira (or Dira, Dearie as she would come to be called). I had been taking lessons on a Morgan gelding named Sagewoods Squire for a while, and although I was completely enamored of him, he was not for sale.

At the time, I was looking at a Morgan mare named Annie. I had ridden Annie once, and we got along swimmingly, but it seemed like every time we tried to make arrangements to bring her to the barn for W To evaluate, some unforseeable circumstance prevented it. Looking back, I'll call that fate. Nadira was meant for me. She needed to be saved, and as it turned out, I needed her just as much. She taught me a level of patience and compassion that i'm not sure I could have learned any other way. She was the mare that helped me discover who I was as a horseperson.

Getting back to how Nadira and I came together...W called me one day, "I have a horse you need to come look at, she's thin and in bad shape, but I think it will be a good match." My parents and I arrived at the barn, and W had a 10 year old fleabitten grey mare in the crossties. She was shockingly thin, but very sweet, and beautiful. Her coat was heavily flecked with chesnut, not the usual black that most fleabitten grays have. In the dim light of the crossties, she almost looked pink in color if I squinted my eyes. I remember that I liked this. She had a longer, traditionally Egyptian head, and a large, soft eye. She was relaxed as I ran my hands over her bony frame. I think she knew that she was in a good place.

While I groomed her, my parents and W discussed the mare. She was a rescue, one of the other barn clients had seen an ad in the newspaper for a "Gray Arab Mare" and gone to see the horse. Although she wasn't what the other client was looking for, she was in such poor condition that they knew she couldn't leave her there. The owner said that if he didn't have the horse sold by Sunday (This was a Wednesday), she was going to the auction (which meant slaughter). The other client got the owner to agree to let her take the mare to V.F. and try and sell her.

I had a lesson on her, and took her on a trail ride with some of the other youth riders. She was so thin, that we didn't push her to do much in the lesson. Just some walk and trot both directions of the arena, and she was a good girl. Unsure of her surroundings, but tolerant and honest. She had the same attitude on the trail ride, unsure about her surroundings, but trusing of me to not get her into trouble. "On paper", she wasn't anything that we'd been looking for, but standing there with her, I immediately knew she was special, and I couldn't let her go.

One heartfelt conversation with my parents and $600 later Owlkill Nadira was mine. Miraculously, the owner actually had registration papers her, and SURPRISE! She was impeccably bred Straight Egyptian (Blue List) by the imported stallion *Orashan (whose stud fee was $3,000 the year she was bred).

While I was impressed by this, my immediate concern became getting her back to a healthy weight. We had her on a diet of alfalfa hay, compressed alfalfa pellets, strategy pellets, and later Satin Finish rice bran weight builder. Nadira quickly began to thrive in her new environment.

Although she was quiet on our first few rides together, as she built her strength up, she began to show me more of her personality. She was green broke when I got her, but luckliy, she didn't have any dangerous habits. Save for one running-off incident involving a plastic-bag-of-death, we didn't have any outstanding scary moments. We had the usual frustrations. I was a fairly inexperienced rider, and she was a fairly green horse. We had to learn together, which sometimes frustrated me to the point of tears. No matter how frustrated I got, I knew I had a good mare. The first time I fell off of Nadira, I was riding in the indoor arena. No one else was riding, but my mom was there, reading a book at the side of the arena, pleasantly tolerating my horsey habit. We were cantering when we hit a slick wet spot in the arena. Nadira slipped, went down on her knees, and got back up. During the slip-and-fall my foot had managed to shoot itself through the stirrup. I was now stuck. Nadira got up, and started to move forward. My mom flew over the indoor arena fence to my rescue. I had never seen her move so fast! Nadira, though, was surprisingly sensible. As soon as she realized that I wasn't where I should be, she just stopped. I distinctly remember looking up and seeing her curious (but anxious) face looking down at me, as if to say "What on earth are you doing down there?" My mom disentangled my foot from the stirrup, and although shaken, I got back on and walked Dira around. We now had and understanding. If I was to fall, she was to stop.

Our first year together, I didn't feel comfortable showing her under saddle, but we both took a liking to Showmanship at Halter. My barn had a series of summer schooling shows, and I faithfully took Dira into every showmanship class. We did well and won consistently. My first blue ribbons were earned with this sweet but spunky mare. I was proud enough to burst at the end of the season, we had earned enough points to beat out the others in the Open Showmanship division and won the High Point award.

Eventually we graduated to showing under saddle in schooling shows, and in local "B" circuit shows. We showed hunter pleasure and held our own the few times we showed, placing respectable 3rd and 4th places mostly. I also took Nadira in some local parades (which she was NOT a fan of, thankyouverymuch!), trail rides, and "Notta Shows", which were play-day/gymkhana type events which were totally absurd and so much fun.

My little (well, not so little, about 14.3) mare took me through it all and was my greatest teacher. We had many trials and tribulations, but she taught me patience and perseverence like nobody else could have. I owe a lot of who I am today to that mare.

When it eventually came time to sell her, I found a wonderful woman who just fell in love with Nadira and her bloodlines. The woman I sold her to had her for 3 years before she decided to breed her to a straight Egyptian stud. Unfortunately, about 6 months into the pregnancy, Nadira coliced several times over a 4 day period, the last bout was so severe, there was no way to save her or the foal, and she had to be euthanized.

I recieved a call the next day to let me know what had happened. Dira's new mommy was devastated, and I was deeply saddened. This was such a special mare, who had definitely earned her second chance at life. To lose her to colic was difficult to accept. She had overcome so many other things in her life! She was a truly special mare. After her death, I found comfort knowing that we made the last years of her life as good as humanly possible, and that when she did pass away, it was with people who loved her, not at the hands of a slaughterhouse worker.

In memory of Owlkill Nadira, AHR#414885

The Beginning

Well, I guess it's logical to begin at the beginning!
I've been riding and showing horses for 12 years now. I caught the horse bug when I was 10. My family still wonders where it came from...nobody in my extended family has ever had anything to do with horses. When I was 10, my family moved out of a sub-division in K-Town, and into a nice home in W.J. Now, W.J. is by no means a "rural" community, but horse property is much more common there than in K-Town. Soon after we moved in, I became friends with "M", who rode 4-H with her QH mare Cinders and her Paint gelding Apache. Cinders was an absolute angel of a mare. She was in her late teens when I met her, and put up with all of our antics. She left a wonderful impression on me, and i'm sure thats why the horse bug got imbedded so deep. Through M, I met a woman named Margo who had Missouri Foxtrotters. Margo took me under her wing and taught me all the basics of horsemanship. She had 2 Foxtrotter geldings, Midnight and Max. Midnight was a show horse and always took my breath away. Max was a sweetheart and a wonderful trail horse. Margo and I used to take them on trail rides through neighborhoods and all around W.J. One day, Margo, sensing that I wanted to do even more with the horses, took me on a trail ride to meet "W", who would become my trainer for many years.
"W" was a middle aged woman who had known Margo for years. She trained out of a barn not far from my house named V.F. "W" had a thriving youth program, and the minute I set foot in that barn, I was in horse-crazy-kid Heaven. There were kids and horses everywhere! My first time there, W watched me riding Max around in the outdoor arena and asked me if i'd like to ride an Arabian. I jumped at the chance. She put me on a bay gelding named Rascal and away I went....or tried. I had never been on a horse that required a posting trot! Max was gaited (obviously) and Cinders trot was so smooth that there was never any need to post. The first time I rode a true hunter trot, I seriously reconsidered this whole riding thing. I felt like my insides were going to be shook out of me! Poor Rascal, packing around a sack of potatoes, just stopped. He was not about to trot around like a good boy with this unbalanced thing on his back! "W" gave me a quick lesson and invited me to come back. I dragged my parents back to V.F. the next day, and I was hooked.

That's how the Equine Addiction began.