The Happy Harness Horse

When Dahlia was just a little baby, dad tried to put a halter on her. They were in a 12 x 12 stall (with Dahlia’s mom) and it still took him 30 minutes to catch her. “I’d put my arms around her” he says, “and she’d jump out – like a bunny rabbit.” Later on it was typical to see her wander off all by herself in the pasture. Her momma would panic and desperately start to look for her. Dahlia would roll her eyes as if to say “holy cow momma, just chill out, would ya?”. We knew early on we had one fiesty, independent minded equine on our hands. She is still the same way. And that is why I love her.

You can go into Dahlia’s stall to find her lying down (a lot of the time) and if you wanted, you could probably sleep in there and use her as a pillow. But when it is time to work, you see a different side. If she sees a saddle, her face says “oh crap, I hate that thing”. She tolerates the exercise, but seemingly complains. On the other hand, if there is a harness there she perks up – looking like a kid about to get on the ferris wheel. Then she goes and you can almost hear her shout “wheeeeeeeee!!!”.

I took Dahlia to Wiebe Dragstra, her trainer in NC, about a month ago. She loves him because he is the carriage driver. Which means he is her buddy – they are part of the same fraternity that the rest of us cannot quite get into. Wiebe is exercising her for the IBOP test. They are not supposed to judge her on looks – just performance – but they have a hard time with that. Dahlia is a short, chunky mare. She really does look like a Friesian – one from 1950. She cannot seem to get trim, no matter what Wiebe does. So, I am not sure how she will fare in her scores. But that’s ok. If nothing else, for 6 weeks she gets to be a harness horse. And a happy one at that.

Today I went to visit Dahlia and watch as she and Wiebe played. If a horse could laugh, she’d be laughing. Or, at a minimum, she’d be yelling “wheeeeee!”