My Perfect Little Love
DerB is aged, meaning he is over ten years old. Actually, he is very aged. DerB is twenty-seven years old. He does NOT look, act, seem, or feel that he is this old (he told me so). DerB still races with the best of them, and chomps at the bit when I bid him halt. His eyes are clear and his body sound (save a touch of arthritis) and I love him so very much.
DerB stands fifteen hands and one half inch, meaning he is five feet and a half inch at the withers, or uppermost point of his shoulders. He is a solid bay with no white markings (just a touch of distinguished greying). DerB is an Anglo-Arabian, meaning his parentage is of a Thoroughbred and Arabian mix. He's a registered half Arab and was shown quite a bit before I got him.
Though he has been known to duck under a low branch or bolt or run his rider along a fence, scraping her bare leg on electric wire... DerB is very concientious of his rider. DerB seems to know when he is carrying a helpless one. He loves children. Little children. He has carried toddlers to teens to fortysomethings and while he will tolerate them all with good humor, he seems to watch out for the little ones. He will step lightly and obey their mixed signals with calm understanding. He does not take fright at what would send him up a tree if I were riding him at the moment. He stands still to be mounted and dismounted (unlike he does with older riders) and his transitions seem much smoother.
DerB does challenge those he feels need to be challenged, me included. He seems to know, however, when to challenge and when not to. I used to jump DerB all the time. Recklessly. I was awful (I should be buried in the ground). I would be hacking him in from the far pasture of some barn with nothing but a single rein made from the lead of his halter and send him toward a pile of boards or a little pond.
DerB ran out once on a jump, when I was riding a course (sans helmet... I know...) at dusk at a new stable; we had just moved into Quarter Till. We had been working for maybe ten minutes and I pointed him at a tiny 1'6" verticle. I was bareback, like usual, and we were in a one reined halter bridle. I was being an idiot trying to show off what he could do when he just said "nope" and trotted neatly around the obstacle. I legged him into a canter and approached at the higher gear, put my leg more solidly on him (I had been sorely unprepared for the first approach) and we cleared it with space to spare. That was the only time DerB refused. Be it trail jump, stadium jump, or cross country jump, he went/goes boldy and confidently. In the days that we jumped everything in site, DerB found his own distances (and as a result I am just now learning how to place a horse correctly at a fence!) and if I am off balance, my little dear compensates. It should be unsafe, I know, but I never feel in danger on my little darling. We even cleared a four foot bank by accident once, and it was exhilerating :-)
