CHARIOT FARM

Reading Raswan

HORSE SENSE

from "This Week, Magazine Section" aprox. 1936

What is it? It's intelligence and devotion to friends--plus a memory that puts human faculties to shame, says this lover of fine Arabian steeds. Here are some thrilling true stories of horses

by CARL R. RASWAN
Author of "Black Tents of Arabia"
(from the Craver Farm collection)

There was an Arabian mare which I rode in California: Fasal, a daughter of Wadduda, the famous war-mare of Hajem Pasha Ibn Meheyd. Wadduda had been a gift of this Arabian desert chief(sic) to Homer Davenport, the American cartoonist, back in 1907. Oh, you would have loved Wadduda's daughter Fasal as much as I did! She was a golden bay with a gentle character like an angel or a good woman. When her first baby was born on our ranch, I called her little filly Markada, which means "Bought-with-Prayer." Markada's father was Jadaan, the stallion which Valentino rode, and Jadaan was the son of Muson, the "Listening-Horse," which came from the desert too. Both Buffalo Bill and "Teddy" Roosevelt declared that Muson was the most beautiful horse they had ever seen. (Ed. Note: The sire of Jadaan was the Davenport stallion, Abbiean, not Muson.)

Fasal went into the hands of Mr. W.K.Kellogg in Pomona, California, where her daughter Markada was born. Six years after the sale of Fasal to Mr. Kellogg I was invited by Mr. Dickenson to visit his Arab Stud on Franklin Pike, near Nashville, Tennessee. Some real treasures of Arabian blood can be found there.

As I was taken about the pasture and Mr. Dickenson showed me his horses, we came to one large corral with a number of mares. While most of the horses galloped away, one mare threw her head up and sniffed the air inquiringly.

"This is curious," Mr. Dickinson said. "She is the shyest of the herd and usually takes the lead. She must know you or she would never allow a stranger to approach her; even I have difficulty impressing her with my love."

We were now very close to the horse, and instead of turning away, the mare came right up to me, put her muzzle into my left armpit, drew a long breath and started to poke her nose all over me.

Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson were amazed. They had never seen such a thing.

"Why--what is the mater with this horse?" inquired Mr. Dickinson.

I smiled

"But you must know her," he said.

"Really, I don't know her," I answered; "but she knows me. If only I could make out who she is. But please don't tell me her name."

Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson were very amused as I started to pet her and look her all over for markings and characteristics.

Suddenly I recognized her and, laying my hands on the soft strand of hair on her forehead (like the Bedouins do) and kissing her nostrils, I said:

Markada--God bless you, my young girl!"

"O, you have recognized her!" Mr. Dickenson called out.

"How long since you saw her?" he asked.

"Not since May, 1926, when she was just a yearling." I answered.

A seven-year old mare remembered the friend she loved when she was just a year old!

That was three-and-a-half years ago. Now, just recently, I have seen Markada again. On my way to Palm Springs California, I stopped in Nashville once more. Markada was sold last year; she is now owned by Mrs. Allard D'Heur, of Columbia, Tennessee, who bred her to the finest stallion I know outside of Arabia: the pure white Saqlawi called "Nasr." (He is the one whose picture I published under the title, "As Beautiful as a Sculpture.")

Again it was as if I were returning to some dear friend. Such is Markada. Almost human in her gentleness, she has a personality which is absolutely individual. She is affectionate and very sentimental in her friendships. Her memory always tells her how she is to meet people whom she has met before. She just threw her head up, gave me a friendly glance, and, walking over to me, laid her neck and head over my shoulder. At the same time, she glanced very inquisitively at Miss Dickinson (who had sold her a year ago to Mrs. D'Heur). When Miss Dickinson laughed and called Markada, she just pricked her ears and whinnied softly as if to say: "Well, I am so glad that you are here too--I haven't seen you, really, for a whole year. But please come nearer and let us be friendly; let me rub my nose upon your healthy cheeks."

With a long, warm kiss on her soft nose, I had to leave. When I see her again--Insha "Allah--God willing--in the Spring -- I shall see a little filly or an "all-legged" colt by her side. And we promised to call "it" a name which we have hidden in our hearts.

Thus Markada strikingly furnished examples of her remarkable memory. How can we explain it? Do animals have another "sense" of which we human beings know nothing? Of course, they develop physically and mentally much quicker than we do; but at three years it seems the limit of their mental faculties is reached. Early impressions seem to last forever.

When I bought Jadaan (father of Markada) in Florida, the horse had been shipped with another stallion to Hingham, mass., (near Boston) on Mr. Peter B. Bradley's estate. IN these stables finally were assembled eleven Arabs which I was to take to california. Two days before shipment, on a Sunday, I called up a horse-shoer and arranged for him to take the shoes off the horses for the trip.

I was alone at the stable later that same day when somebody in an automobile arrived in the yard. I walked to the stable door, where I met a man in his Sunday dress. As the stranger entered, a terrific commotion started in one of the boxes in which the horses were stabled.

I excused myself in a hurry and asked the man to wait. As I reached Jadaan's box, the stallion was in a wild mood, pawing the air, shaking his mane, groaning, squealing and blowing the air. No coaxing words of mine nor other distraction I tried would pacify him. The stranger at the entrance of the stable called to me to leave the stallion alone. He seemed to know what the trouble was and left the stable. To my surprise, Jadaan became quiet.

Now I realized that it was the presence of the man that the horse did not like. I opened the box stall. Jadaan came up to me, sniffed me all over and laid his muzzle right up to my cheek and inhaled my scent. This seemed to satisfy him completely.

I fastened the box stall, walked to the door and spoke to the man who was sitting in his automobile.

"I am the horse-shoer," he said, "and I think I can tell you what horse made all the noise. Is it not a dapple gray with a beautiful long neck?"

"Yes," I answered. "but how do you know it? Why should the horse not like you?"

"Five years ago," the man related, "Mr. Bradley asked me to shoe his horses. I was also to put irons on this youngster, only a two-year-old then. AS I walked behind him I carelessly dropped my heavy steel tools on the cement floor. It happened in that corner over there in the yard. The young horse, frightened by the sudden noise, stepped back and right on one of the steel files, which cut into the pasterns of one of his hind legs. The scar should show yet; it was a bad cut and took many weeks to heal; but I could never go near this horse again."

The memory of a horse! They say the same thing of an elephant.

I went back into the stable, and to make sure that it was the man who had caused jadaan's excitement, asked the horse-shoer to enter the stable once more.

I was standing beside Jadaan in the box stall when the horse-shoer entered. (Mind you, in his Sunday clothes-->not< with is "smelly" leather apron and tools!) Jadaan, as if electrified, jumped into the air, though he could not see or hear the man--only his sense of smell told him that an "enemy" was about.

The next day the horse-shoer did his work with the other ten horses all right; but he could not get near Jadaan. I took the shoes off Jadaan myself--without any trouble at all. Of course, Jadaan had been shod many times during the previous five years (four of them in Florida, during which time Jadaan certainly had >never< seen this horse-shoer). This goes to prove that Jadaan was not afraid of the tools that injured him, but of the man whom he connected with his painful memory.

I could tell you many more stories of Jadaan; it would take a book to tell them all. Here I shall relate only one more tale--one that shows what a friend Jadaan turned out to be after he was brought to California.

There was another stallion, Magil (or Mizuel, as he was registered) that I had bought from Mr. Bradley and brought out to California with Jadaan--and nine other Arabians.

During my absence from the ranch for a few days, someone got hold of Magil and "fired" both his front legs for swollen tendons. Magil had been thrown by force, roped with lariats and the crud and cruel "operation" performed by a mule driver who had taken advantage of my absence.

From that day on Magil was never again the horse he used to be. He hated human beings. He was an Arab -- proud, intelligent and never anyone's slave. They could have "fired" him in a decent way, but they should not have roped hi and thrown him like a pig on the ground. No sir, an Arab will not stand for that.

When I returned, the damage was done: the "firing" by the way, had been useless.

Magil had always been a splendid horse to ride. A bit nervous, but a runner and jumper of great speed. I was always proud to ride him because he was not only "showy," but willing and fearless. I had made a fine, crafty polo horse out of him.

But now Magil was a killer. He had learned to bite and kick. It took months of patience and dangerous moments galore before I could say:

"Magil almost seems to have found his old trust in human beings again"

>Almost<-not quite. He had gradually lost all his bad manners except one or two: he would suddenly (that is really unexpectedly, right out of the blue) rise on is hind feet and try to throw the rider under him when he fell backward. A killer in the truest sense of the word: I was thrown many times, but being very agile, I was always out of the saddle, with my feet on the ground, before the horse could finish its nasty trick. So in time I used a martingale- that is, a leather strap which connects the noseband of the halter with the cinch of the saddle. It prevents a horse from rearing. True Bedouins never ride with martingales, but if common sense teaches you to use it in emergency cases, why not do so?

I rode him also with a short shank curb bit. Magil had acquired another bad habit--he would suddenly try to run away, and nothing but the strong legs of the rider and a curb-bit would stop him then.

And to top it all, I had to use something I never used on any other horse: a whip! Magil's worst habit had become to jump suddenly into the path of an approaching automobile. so when passing cars I would switch the whip up and down before his eye.

A friend of mine, a young man of twenty-two years, helped me with the horses at the time. Though he was a good rider, I did not trust Magil to him.

One morning as the two of us were exercising the horses, I mounted on Magil and my friend on Jadaan, the young man insisted on being allowed to ride Magil. I refused.

The young man, however, could not see the point. He said:

"I could ride that stallion without martingale, curb-bit or whip, if you'd only let me do it."

"All right," I answered angrily, "but first let >me< do it."

You seem my friend had stepped on my pride--men are that way.

I dismounted, threw the whip away, pulled the martingale off the cinch and noseband and unhooking the curb, put a plain snaffle into Magil's mouth.

"Come on!" I called to my friend as we mounted and rode off.

We trotted along, and I , in the lead, began to think that my friend perhaps was right. Maybe it was about time to discard these artificial helps in the "education" of Magil.

No automobiles on that road--we were riding along a winding path into the hills. We came finally to a place where the road forked off--one arm a straight line on the level to the end of the hill, where you look almost straight down upon the fair grounds of Pomona, and the other arm leading further uphill.

For a few moments I forgot that I was on Magil--and Magil must have felt it...

With a viciousness that is almost unbelievable, Magil suddenly made a leap forward -- putting enough rein through my hands to win that freedom to his neck which he needed to run away at top speed. In a bee-line he headed for that precipice, not more than two hundred feet away! If it had been a longer stretch, I might have been able to pull him in.

Instinctively I did the only thing to save my life: I let my toes out of the stirrups. But I also wanted to save the life of the horse and therefore had to stay on to the last possible moment.

In a few seconds we reached the fatal turn of the road--almost a right angle. Magil was too fast to make >that< turn and besides, Magil was out to kill the rider even if he had to kill himself to do it.

I threw myself out of the saddle, but hung on for dear life to the reins. Magil stumbled as I fell--then he swung around, and his hind legs and quarters disappeared over the edge. He fought and struggled with his front lets to gain the level surface again. My weight on the reins helped the horse to win. Still lying on my back and hanging on with all my strength, I had been dragged along the edge of the road. I was lying in the very angle of the sharp turn when the young man on Jadaan reached the scene at a canter. They had not yet seen what had happened.

As Jadaan made the turn, he appeared so suddenly over my body that he could not have helped stepping on me if a miracle of self-control had not taken place.

Jadaan's one hoof was coming straight down over my face and chest -- I saw it distinctly for the part of a second. I closed my eyes, expecting to be crushed--but nothing of that kind happened. jadaan had changed his gait almost in the sir -- with only one leg on the ground.

Jadaan came to a stop just a few strides away, while Magil was making his last desperate efforts. He had rolled over on his side onto the road, getting finally on his four legs. He shook his coat as he rose and blew his nostrils in relief -- his body still trembling all over from the terrible struggle.

I was on my feet too, my back and neck hurting very badly.

I opened the saddle girth and moved the saddle in place; I fixed the halter which had been pulled almost off Magil's head--and I started to feel him all over. Except for a great number of chafings and scratches, the "bad boy" was all right. so I mounted him again--and Magil walked along fine and quietly after the terrible shock.

After passing Jadaan, who was silently and patiently waiting with his young rider in the road, I turned back to my friend and motioned for him to follow.

But Jadaan would not move.

I turned Magil around and went up to Jadaan, dismounted. Gently I took him by the halter and, clicking with my tongue, tried to lead him away. But poor Jadaan made only a few attempts and could not do any more.

The wonderful horse had saved my life by a sheer super-effort -- changing its gait from the right shoulder gallop to the left when its off (right) foreleg had already made the down stroke movement of the gait. Jadaan threw every nerve, sinew and muscle of his legs, abdomen and shoulders into a counter action, so that he would not touch my prostrate form -- an din doing so strained and injured his own ligaments and muscles.

what a brave -- what an intelligent animal!

We got an automobile with a trailer and took Jadaan to a veterinary. It took several weeks of messaging and bandaging before Jadaan was himself again and the children and my friend could ride him.

Jadaan was almost human to us. He is still alive on the Kellogg Ranch in California, beloved by everyone who sees him.

Mrs Carl Raswan: Latest Editions Of
The Arab And His Horse and The Raswan Index

Chariot Farms

Davenports: Articles of History

CMK Pages

The Heirloom Pages

The Pasha Institute

Al Khamsa, Inc.

Arabian Visions'

 

 

 

 


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