My Old Kentucky Home and My Cream-Colored Horse

See how a Shetland Pony changed the life of a teenage boy

As a child, but for only six years, my family and I lived in McCracken County, Paducah, Kentuchy.  It was exactly considered Blue Grass Country, there were few if any Horse Farms were beautiful Kentucky race horses were raised, and trained set out on a path to win the Kentucky Derby, or the remainder of the Horsing’s Triple Crown. NO, this was Western Kentucky, but there was a horse or two here and there, there were many large farms, and enterprises that regularly required the involvement of horse-power. 

But, about two hundred miles to the south in Northwest Alabama, my cousins did have a few horses.  They were work animals and were necessary to plow fields for the crops that were planted each spring.  Many were draft animals and pulled heavy loads, and some pulled nothing more than Surreys to church and into town.  Some were used to pull timber to he local saw mill and from there to building sites.  Nothing as exciting as the Kentucky Thoroughbreds trained to “Run for the Roses” on the first Saturday of each May at the Kentucky Derby. 

No, my experience with horses was much more mundane.  To me horses were huge and dangerous, and to be quite frank, I was unexperienced with them and afraid of them.  Back in Paducah, though I had a neighbor who had a small farm and they had several horses, and it was there that I came face to face with my worst fears about getting hurt by a wild horse gone rogue in he stable.  It was there in that stable that I got kicked and sent to the hospital, unconscious and bleeding profusely.  It was there that I saw lights and stars and then blackness.  It was there, in that stable that I learned where not to stand and how to avoid such perils.  Unfortunately, my injuries would be more emotionally traumatic  than lasting permanent physical markers of severe injury. 

Fortunately, for me the little blond, Shetland pony I walked behind that day had been mistreated herself that day and took her frustrations out on me.  I walked behind her that afternoon, and she gave me delicately little love tap to show her infinite, intimate affection for what she thought was going to be another tail slap.  I had no idea that she was having such a bad day with her human ‘friends,’ but I found out that you do not pass behind a horse like that.  It is their ‘blind side’ so to speak, and they like to know If they need to be concerned for their safety when a human is back there. 

So, having learned the hard way, I stayed out of the stable for the rest of the summer and declined any opportunity to go back in and, well, make amends to the horse that I scared that day.  It had been three month, and my uncle took me back inside the stable to the stall where the little creamy colored Shetland normally spent its off hours resting and eating oats.  My uncle said, “Carter, I or one of us should have explained horse etiquette to you when you came here but, being busy we just didn’ have the time, and I thought one of my sons or stable hands would have educated you a little bit.  I am sorry that did no happen, but listen, you learned a valuable lesson and now you can spend the rest of the summer learning to be this little blond cuties friend.  Listen, Carter, horses like people and if you give this one an apple it will become your best friend and follow you around like puppy dog.  It is one of the most friendly horses we have here at the Double B Bar. 

With that, my uncle gave me a sweet Washington State apple.  Now, he said just slowly edge It over to Bonny Clay and let her take it.  Keep your fingers at the very back of he apple so that you are just barely holding it.  Soon as she has it, let it go without delay.  Bonny Clay took the apple with a good deal of enthusiasm and I barely got my fingers out of her way.  But Bonny Clay was very happy to receive he treat, and just as predicted by my uncle walked along the inside of the stall for a few feet.  See, she now thinks you are her best friend and benefactor and will treat her real good from now on.  You just made a friend for life Carter.  But from now on walk on her left side and rub down her face and along her neck.  Groom her with he brush every day, and you will decide before long that she is a friend worth having.  She already likes you a LOT, and she does no remember kicking you and doesn’t know she hurt you three months ago.

Now Bonny’s full name was Bonny Clay Morgan, and she was technically a diminuative or miniature horse based on height.  They are normally friendly and interact well with humans.  They can be grey, red, even blond or light chestnut which is a less common and rarer color for a Sheltland.  In the horse kingdom, Shetland’s are in every way genetically a horse.  If seen in a photograph without references, it would be identical-in characteristics, conformation and proportion to any full-size horse.  They are generally quite hardy, often living longer on average than some full-sized horse breeds.’

Bonny Clay was a ten-year old blond, light chestnut Shetland and was registered by the AMHR, a division of he the American Shetland Pony Club.  She was a beautiful little horse, and now I had a problem, I had fallen in love with this little pony and I did not want to leave her at the end of the summer.  And, just as my uncle had suggested, Bonny would follow me like a puppy and be my best friend.  Over the summer, I fed her constantly with oats and apples, and took care of her grooming and exercise.  She did not work much while I was there, she was just to be given love and affection, and I was her chief protector.

In early August, Bonny Clay took sick and that morning about 8:15,  I found her on her left side in a lather.  I called my uncle and within minutes he was there at her side and twenty minutes later she was being attended by the vet.  It was a new condition for her, and I was frantic to know what was wrong with my best friend.  Bonny Clay was quickly diagnosed as having a simple obstruction of the intestines due to impacted food material or foreign bodies.  It caused her abdomen to become distended and could have caused the flow of flood to be impaired.  Bonny Clay was in peril and quick work was required to relieve the blockage.  My uncle and the vet worked all evening and all night long to help Bonny, but around four in the morning Bonny Clay’s situation worsened, and her vital signs began to slow as her cardiovascular system began to decline under the stresses of a trying to keep up with blocked vessels.   My uncle began to warn me that Bonny Clay might not be able to overcome her condition.

I could not believe my Bonny Clay had gotten so sick so fast.  I got up and ran out of the stable and began to cry, then nausea overtook me and I was physically sick for some time.  Around six in the morning, my uncle came out of the stable and said, Carter, Bonny Clay is on her own now. There is nothing left we can do for her.  Her bowels are unobstructed and have been for some time, it is now all about her heart, and her will to live.  She needs you Carter to go and be with her.  Talk to her, and touch her and rub her coat.  She will respond to you if you will go to her now and be strong for her.  With that, I jumped up and ran into he stall and began to talk to her and give her the best attention a friend can give her.  For hours I set there next to her, talking to her and rubbing her neck, and finally about noon, Bonny Clay Morgan began showing signs of improvement.  Three and one-half hours later she rocked her neck and head from the left to the right and back again until she was on her left haunch.  She was in effect sitting up, and I began to cry enormous tears of joy.  She would lay over occasionally, but after a few minutes she would rise back up and look around.  That longest day was finally over at nine fifteen that evening when Bonny Clay rocked herself up and got up on all fours.  A day that lasted twenty-five hours in agony and torment had finally come a conclusion.  The vet told us how to take care of her for the days and weeks to come, and I spent the last four weeks of my summer vacation that year bringing Bonny Clay Morgan back to full health.  I came back to visit her every vacation and every holiday off from school until the next spring when I packed my bags and returned to the Double B Bar ranch just outside Paducah, Kentucky.  I worked that ranch for seven summers until I went away to college when I was eighteen.  Bonny Clay Morgan lived for eighteen more years on he Double BAR B Ranch, and had several offspring.  All Blond light chestnuts, and they were all just as rare and just as beautiful as Bonny Clay.  She never had another Colic event again, living out her days with a big happy family.

In all those years after I went to college, to become a vet, I would go the Double Bar B Ranch to visit my best friend.  And, as soon as she saw me, she would come running up to he fence and follow me down he line until I gave her a Washington state sweet summer apple.  She had been my truest friend on the ranch for twenty-five years.  My cream-colored pony, best friend, and solely responsible for giving me the desire to become a veterinarian. 

You see, I learned that your best friends in life are not always human.  In my case, it was this little Shetland Pony.  She taught me one lesson after another about life and how you interact with living, breathing creatures of all kinds.  She didn’t force her friendship on me, but she made a deep impression on me of loyalty and trust, of comradeship and faith.  She had a personality that was over-powering and true.  I will never forget my Bonny Clay Morgan.  She was and will always remain the “APPLE OF MY EYES.”  My life was forever altered by the magic that little miniature horse brought to my life, and how she brought purpose to my life when I was a scared kid to begin with. 

I don’t think Bonny Clay did this all with that purpose in mind, but I think she thought in her own way that I was hers and she didn’t want me to stop taking care of her.  Maybe, it was just her own way of achieving self-preservation and her own happiness, but it was her purpose to keep me close by her side where she thought I belonged, and everything else just came naturally in the course of time.   Horses are generally smart, loving animals and they will attach themselves to a human being.  They have feelings and expression and very often let their wills be known.  They care about things and want to be liked by humans for what they do.  In other words, they seek a human’s acceptance, and are disappointed when they don’t achieve it.