3rd in series Chronicles of a Broke Horse Trainer

was an almost certainty that there would be boards to replace or gates to repair before the stalls were “horse ready”. As I was attending to these tasks and looking around trying to get my bearings at this facility, I noticed an older gentleman at the far end of the barn with a horse tacked up in western tack (which I assumed to be a pony horse) in one hand and a lean bay race mare on a leather lead line in the other hand. They were soon joined by a young man who crawled on the pony horse, secured the lead shank of the race mare and walked away toward the track gate. In a matter of a minute or so I heard the sound of thundering hooves which was produced by the bay mare headed back to the barn at full speed with the leather shank whipping around beside her. Not far behind her came the pony horse at a somewhat unconcerned trot also bound for the barn. The young man followed at a “stomping” walk while muttering some very unflattering remarks about the pony horse. The young man never made it completely to the barn before waving his hand in a dismissing manner at the old man as he circled in a different direction. It was then that the old man yelled in my direction “Do you ride?”. I replied that I had been known to on occasion which prompted him to proclaim that if I could get that so and so horse and that bay mare around the track and all three of us come back together then he would give me the pony. I explained to him that I really didn’t want to take his horse but would sure give it a try. If I got dumped, it wouldn’t be my first mouth full of race track dirt. The pony was a good looking, stout horse with a couple of crop-out paint markings on his legs and belly and a wide crooked blaze down his face which spread across his eye on the right side and caused him to have a blue eye on that side. As I approached close enough to get a “read” on the horse, I was greeted with what appeared to be a rather calm eye despite the resent chaos and a non-threatening demeanor. The old man introduced himself as Art and said he called the pony Buck. I am sure the name came from Buck’s da rk buckskin