The Gentleman and the Devil

The gentleman Ross gets his photo taken standing tied later in the day that he was a devil!

Willowtrail Ross, my 9 month old Fell Pony gelding, utilized a hole in the pasture fence three times before I found it.  He was after the lawn in front of my house, considering it more appealing than the hill where the pony herd roams.  The lawn was definitely lusher and exotic compared to the native grasses on the hill.  And definitely not something I wanted him consuming a lot of!

The first two times he was out were during the late afternoon, and I walked up to him with a halter, put it on him, and returned him to the hill.  Not so the third time.  I woke up and looked out the window to see him grazing as fast as he could, with the rest of the herd looking longingly over the fence at him.  I threw on some clothes and headed out, grabbing a halter and lead rope out of one of my horse trailers that was parked nearby.  I walked towards Ross as I had previous times, and I saw him take a step away when I got within twenty feet.  Hmmm.  I thought, this is different.  Sure enough, he wouldn’t let me come any closer than twenty feet.

I’d had enough of that game before very long, so I swung the lead rope any time he put his head down to graze.  He soon recognized the pattern and let me come closer. I was able to give him a good scratch but before I could put the halter on, he moved off.  I realized the halter I had picked up was different than the one he usually wears – an adjustable web-type with a loose snap ring that jingled when I moved – so I went to get a halter more familiar to him.  This time I was able to get close enough to give him a good scratch and get the halter on his nose, but he reared into the air before I could get it fully on him.   Hmmm, indeed!

I knew what the problem was.  I’d experienced it once before with one of his older sisters.  Too much rich feed.  With his sister, it was just a few days before her new owner was due to come pick her up, and I couldn’t get a halter on her.  I was panicky until I figured out the problem.  Within two days of reducing the rich portion of her feed, she was back to her normal compliant self.  I was reminded of what happened once when I fed some neighbor children brownies with raspberry jam topping.  They went from being polite and mild-mannered to ill-behaved and needing to move-move-move!  The same thing happens to ponies.  I did eventually get Ross reunited with the herd, by haltering his mom and using her influence on him to get him through a gate back onto the hill. 

A few hours later, when I had the herd in for their feed buckets and daily handling, Ross approached me in the paddock to say hello, back to being his normal gentlemanly self.  It almost felt like he was apologizing.  When it came time to halter him, I approached with lots of question marks in my head, but I tried to keep my concerns well-muffled.  He let me halter him as usual.

Later, when I thought back on Ross in his devil mode, I thought I might have been more successful with him if there hadn’t been so many unusual circumstances.  He had been separated from the herd (just by a wire fence but separated, nonetheless), I was trying to halter him while the rest of the herd was loose (usually I halter him last after everyone else is standing tied), I was wearing loose-fitting clothing that was unfamiliar to him, and I tried to use that unfamiliar halter.  The best strategy for keeping Ross in his gentleman mode, though, is to not let him get in the candy shop.  I found his hole in the fence later that day and repaired it!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories from my life with Fell Ponies can be found in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.