I Have Horses!

I have horses! On Thursday (a weekish ago) we collected all of the work horses that we had mustered so far - about 45 of them, and 'drafted' them. Drafting entails moving portions of the mob (herd) at a time through a series of pens that become smaller as they progress, until finally 1 horse at a time is allowed into the round pen. Once there Cameron, The Boss, decided who would ride each horse. "Lucy, grab Hot Lips here." "I think Tommy Gun would be a good horse for Mat." "Jesse, give this wild hoorang a try." Each jack and jillaroo was assigned at least 3 horses, and a handful of them, the camp draft horses, were kept as spares. (Camp drafting is the rodeo sport of choice in the NT and seems to be unique to Australia. More on that later.) When all was said and done, I had been assigned Wilbur, End Over, and Dingo. (Yes, after all the jokes, I actually ended up with a Dingo of my own.)

Wilbur is only about 3 and was one of last year's breakers, which means he has only been ridden maybe half a dozen times. As befits his age, he is small framed, but he should fill out this season as he gets into shape. He is a nondescript brown, not bay, with only a tiny white crescent on his forehead. I'm not sure whether it was by design or coincidence that he ended up with the name of a pig, but it suits him. He has a stubborn streak a mile wide. His coping mechanism for stress is simply to shut down. You want forward, he gives you backwards. The more you urge him on, the more he locks up. This mostly seems to be because of his age and inexperience, though. You can feel him getting confused and frustrated and over thinking things. Honestly, I know the feeling. Today, though, I took him out to work cattle for the first time. Once he was faced with a concrete task, he was able to concentrate and loosen up. After a few long days tailing cows I'm sure he will start to really understand what is expected of him and relax. I'm looking forward to the learning process and excited to see how he develops.

Quite the opposite of Wilbur (in looks, at least), End Over is a sway backed old man. He is a buckskin with a blaze face, black points, and unusual blue flecked eyes. Unfortunately, these promising features do not come together to form an attractive whole- he's not a good looking fellow. Even more unfortunately, he shares Wilbur's stubbornness, although he lacks Wilbur's good excuse. Really, he's just flat lazy. I rode hm for our first muster last Friday - 10 hours of bonding time in the saddle, and it was agony. I had to flog him just to make him move, much less walk out. Should a cow break out, he can occasionally rally a bit of enthusiasm, but it is always too little, too late. Not only that, but he's afraid of everything- motorbikes, food wrappers, even sometimes other riders, and he has the bad habit of bolting and running me into thinks when spooked. End Over's greatest virtue is that he makes every other horse a pleasure to ride.

The last horse of the day on Thursday was Dingo. Yay Dingo! What a rock star! He is a big red sorrel with a huge, wide blazed head, giant muley ears, and a blond mane that stands up like a mow hawk. He looks like a doofus, which actually he is - at slow moments on a muster he likes to turn his head back to have me scratch his nose. But oooooh buddy can he move! Just let one cow break away and he is on it, big ears pinned back, running wide open until she turns. Then he skids to a stop, wheels around, and drives her back into the mob. Little in life compares to the rush of wrapping up a cow- flying across the flats, dodging bushes, leaping ditches, and then pulling up hard as you get her back. Those moments on that horse, fleeting seconds of adrenaline and speed, are why I love this job.

On Friday of this past week we went out to another part of the Station called Creswell to work cattle. Half of the work horses were still out in that area, so we rode ones that were already there. I ended up with an older mare named Candid. She's an ugly beast - she has no forelock, barely any mane, and the flies adore her. She's got some good moves- pivot turns that could knock you socks off, but she stresses out and over thinks everything. Actually, that makes us a perfect pair because I do, too!