Woodrow

The first time I saw Woodrow, I mistook him for a mare.

I was about 15 years old, and still reeling from the loss of my beloved lease horse about six months prior. Losing Rocky was also the loss of my horsey support system; once he passed I found that it hurt to even think of returning to the barn. But I'd had a year long apprenticeship with the barn's manager/trainer - working rescued horses and turning up boarder's horses under his tutelage and in exchange for lessons. I'd even started teaching group lessons for the barn in trade for my lease. And so after all that had ended, I drifted for awhile - depressed and horseless but for the ancient TB gelding I fed mush to 4x a day as part of my FFA class duties.

Then I got hired on to teach riding lessons to young kids at my high school's FFA farm after school, and that blossomed into taking care of and exercising all of the horses several times a week.

It was a bleak Friday morning in midwinter, cold and damp. I was bundled up in the way that only Southern California kids do when "real weather" strikes. I didn't drive yet, and my mom had dropped me off a bit later than usual, so I was in a hurry to feed the horses and climb the steep 75 steps up to the main campus before the first bell rang.

My wellies, hastily pulled on and a size too big, squelched in the mud as I stomped up to the corral. A new face was hung over the white vinyl fence. A shaggy chestnut face with a slightly off-center star and a thin white stripe and perky ears. My boss, a lady in her 30s who oversaw the riding program at the time, had mentioned that we might be getting a new horse, but hadn't said when, only, "I think it was a rope horse or something." Back then, we didn't have much of a selection process for acquiring school horses. If it was free and mostly sound, mostly sane, and at least partly broke - she took it.

"Hi girl," I said, assuming that the horse under all the crusted mud was a mare, and giving the cute star a rub. Since I hadn't gotten any special instructions, I fed them and went over to look the new horse over, my worry over earning a tardy to first period taking a back seat to curiosity.

Almost immediately I noticed that the "mare" was, in fact, a gelding. He was on the skinny side, his ribs showing even though the winter coat. He had little quarter horse feet on a big boned, square frame, and the beginnings of a swayback. He must only have arrived the night before, but he had already set himself up as the boss of the herd and all without leaving a scratch on any of the others. I patted his shoulder and resolved to call my boss after school to find out his name.

Little did I know as I slipped out between fence slats and slogged up to class that Woody would end up being my best friend, partner, confidant and psychologist for over a decade.