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Tales from the O-NO Ranch 10-12-09

Mad Jack Hanks
Wellington, Colo.

I would almost be willing to bet ya, gentle readers, that most little girls in this country dream of having their own horse. Little girls, at least most of the little girls that I have ever come in contact with, love horses. Why is that? I don’t have an answer other than to say that they must have that little nawin’, secret, overwhelming desire to be around horses as I did when I was a little boy.

My brother didn’t seem to need to have that distinctive smell or horses to fill any void he might have. I did. If we drove by a stable where there were a good many horses, I could smell it a mile away and alert everyone in the car that we were getting near horses.

Our daughter Sunni started riding, the best I recall, at age three. She was on the ranch and horses were just a part of the every day scene. She didn’t have to love or even like horses, we weren’t going to make her grow up on one if there was no desire. She just naturally took to them and drew pictures of them and it seemed her little world was consumed with horses. In the fourth grade, Carla Sue Horton could draw some really fancy horses. You know, with their heads high in the air and long thick manes and tails blowing in the wind. I never drew horses like that as a little boy in the fourth grade because I had never seen a horse like that. I, at one time, had an old buzzard bait of a gelding that was nothing but hide hair, sunken eyes and bone. When I would draw a horse I would make him look a little better than ole buzzard bait, but not much.



Yesterday my granddaughter Kailee came out with her family and two of her little girlfriends and their folks to let the girls ride Kailee’s horse.

Children, I have to tell ya, it was a dreary day. It was misting rain and about 40 degrees but I had promised that little darling that she could bring her friends out to ride. Now one of these little girls was tiny, tiny but her love for horses and everything that pertained to horses showed up at once. I had ole Howdy, my big ole fat paint hoss up close to the fence while the girls were feeding them carrots. This tiny little girl was in her little horse heaven watching the three horses fight over the carrots. I asked her if she would like to sit on Howdy while he was eating carrots and you never in your life saw such a tiny little girl scramble over the top of that corral fence to be put on that ole fat horse.



Later I saddled him up and rode with the little one behind me and she also got to ride Kailee’s horse by herself with an adult close by.

Later in the house when we were warming up by the stove this little tyke picked up a Western Horseman magazine off the coffee table and began to pour through it slowly page by page. When they left, I gave the little one a few copies of my horse magazines to read at her leisure. She had a death grip on them as she went out the door.

What a fun day. The most satisfying part of the day was to see one little tiny, tiny girl atop a big ole stout ranch hoss and the look on her face said it all. It could never get too cold for that little one to ride. She will grow up to be a horse woman for sure and a really good one at that.

Stay tuned, check yer cinch on occasion and I’ll c. ya.


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