Two Speed

I have a story that needs telling tonight.

Horses and I have a long and somewhat complicated history. I wanted one desperately when I was a kid. I got thrown from a horse when I was 23 and hurt my back badly enough that I was bedridden for three months. I mistrusted horses for the next decade or so, until my husband persuaded me to take riding lessons so we could go horseback riding on a trip we were taking to Iceland. I overcame my fears, and became an adequate equestrian (my teacher wanted me to start showing, which is when I decided I didn’t need lessons any more and stopped taking them).

I learned to ride, but it was never a passion with me the way it was for my husband. I went along with it because he liked riding so much. He spent both days each weekend at a local stable, trading odd-jobs for ride time. I had the choice of doing my own thing, or going along to the stables with him so we’d spend time together in the same place. At first, I chose to accompany him to the stables. That’s a separate long, boring story, and not the one I need to tell tonight.

So I learned to ride. We went to Iceland, and we rode Icelandic ponies through a lava field. We came home again, and I started my studies for veterinary school, and got accepted. I was busier than I’d ever been in my adult life, working seven days a week to keep up with my classes.

As Christmas approached during the first year I was in vet school, my husband and I were sitting in the living room, having some sort of random discussion, when he said “Wouldn’t it be fun to own an Icelandic horse?” I knew right then and there that he’d gone out and bought a horse for me for Christmas. I never let on I knew, but I was furious with him. I was busting my ass trying to stay above C-level at school, and the last thing I needed was something that was as big a time drain as a horse would be.

I kept my mouth shut, hoping I was wrong, but the day after my last finals he took me to the stables where he hung out and, sure enough, there was a fifteen year old roan pony, fourteen and a half hands high, standing in the driveway with a red ribbon around his middle.

I think I put on what had to be the best act I’ve ever put on in my life that afternoon. Neither my husband nor the multitude of people who he’d told about my present ever suspected that I was angry about this horse. What was done was done, and I wasn’t about to make the mistake of complaining about this gift. I’d just look surly and ungrateful. So I put on a good face, and set about making the best of it.

The horse, who came with the name “Two Speed”, was definitely a character. He only reined English, and I only rode Western, so he and I had a lot of accommodating to do. I ended up spending a lot more time at the stables, since I now had an obligation to keep this animal exercised and groomed.

I had some good times with Two, but I can’t say that I ever enjoyed going to the stables. I didn’t like most of the people who hung out there, and I never really fit in, even with the people I did like. It was a relief when the stable had to move venues a couple of years later to a new place that had no riding trails. Two Speed, who was fifteen when he was given to me, was starting to get too old for riding anyhow, and while I still visited him, I started finding excuses to not go to the stable every weekend.

When I got divorced, my husband wanted to know what to do about Two. I knew at that point that there was no way I could afford to keep him. I knew that the ex really wanted him, so I told the ex that I wouldn’t be able to manage to keep him and if he’d like he could have Two.

I’d always intended to try and sneak back and visit Two after the divorce, though I really wanted to time the visit so that I wouldn’t have to encounter the woman who ran the stables. One thing led to another and now, nearly four years later, I’ve still not gone back to visit.

I got an email from the ex tonight. Two had to be put down yesterday. They think he must have twisted his colon, something that isn’t uncommon with horses. In a younger horse that can be treated surgically, but at twenty-five years of age, the roany pony was simply too old to be a good surgical risk. He was old, had virtually no teeth left, and hadn’t been used for riding in a couple of years. Surgery would only have made the remainder of his life a misery. My ex made the right call when he elected to put Two to sleep.

I sit here now trying to take it all in. I feel guilty for never really having wanted the animal. I don’t think I did him justice, quietly accepting him instead of voicing my dismay at having been given him. He certainly lived a pretty cushy life with my ex and I, but would he have preferred to be owned by some young girl who would have doted on his every move and groomed him to within an inch of his life? I guess there’s no way of asking an animal that, but I can’t help but wonder.

I’m mourning for the death of a horse who stole carrots, lusted after peppermints, and whose best friend was a Shetland pony that used to try and boss him around. And I’m mourning for a lot more. I’m mourning for the lack of communication that led to him being presented to me. I mourn for my ex, who never really understood that he didn’t know what was best for me. I mourn my own stupidity, for never learning to assert myself and lay claim to my own needs until it was too late to do so.

I really don’t feel very good about myself right now.

Two Speed. Picture appended to entry 1 February 2004