Windsor and Julie
Julie grew up on a farm in North Dakota. They grew wheat, barley, edible beans, sunflowers, and sugar beets. Her dad was a hardworking man, not easily ruffled by much of anything. Her mother, on the other hand, was an excitable woman of Irish descent. Julie was the youngest of their eight children, three girls, and five boys. Every member of the family had jobs to do.
When Julie was seven, her dad decided to sell off the dairy herd they owned. That left a barn full of hay with nothing to eat it. He grew up on a farm that used horses. He loved horses, so he found two welsh ponies and brought them home for his two youngest. When the two finished their chores, they had to chase the ponies for an hour to catch them. Then, bareback with no helmet, Julie and her brother rode those ponies as far as their legs would take them. At thirteen, her dad noticed Julie was getting too large for her pony. He bought her a beautiful black half-Arabian named Watusi for her birthday.
After she finished her chores, her mother told her, “Go get your horse and be gone!” Julie grabbed a bucket of oats to lure Watusi, saddled him up and rode. There were few fences. Julie and Watusi rode for miles in any direction. She stopped to see neighbors, sometimes accepted a cookie and a drink of water, and was off again until dinner time.
Life took a sad turn when her father passed away from cancer. Julie was just sixteen. The farm sold, including her Watusi. She knew she would have a horse in her life again, so she kept her saddle. She felt as long as she had that saddle, she was halfway there. First, she would need a place of her own with enough room for a horse she could see every day.
Twenty-three years later, she purchased an old farmstead large enough to keep a horse. Many things had to happen before she could buy a horse. She needed a job that paid better too. On her way home one day, she passed a sign that read, “Horses for Sale.” She stopped to look.
Julie walked inside the barn and looked at the horses in stalls. She saw a white horse standing in one. The horse called out to her, stretching his neck, desperately looking for something to eat. She walked over to see him more clearly. She realized he was standing up to his fetlocks in ooze. She was appalled. It looked like nobody ever cleaned that stall. She noticed the horse was a bag of bones and missing the tip of one ear, likely to frostbite. Her heart nearly broke. The other horses on the place were Paints. He was the only Arabian, and it appeared they didn’t care too much about him. The owner kept him and the other horses in filthy, cramped stalls in a dark, crowded barn. There was very little feed on the property. None of the animals were in good condition, but this white horse kept reaching out to her, begging for food. She asked the owner to take the horse outside so she could get a good look at him.
The owner talked the horse up while Julie looked him over. She told Julie he was a registered Arabian, but the papers got lost between owners. The horse was seven years old and ready to ride. He was saddle trained. She was asking a whole lot more for the horse than he was worth. Julie knew she had to rescue this horse no matter what it cost. A week later, Windsor came to live with Julie on her small farm. He went from neglected to pampered and spoiled.
Julie spent the next several months trying to put weight back on Windsor without much success. She also tried several times to put a bridle on the horse. Windsor would grab the bit and throw it 40 feet away every time. She was stumped. As luck would have it, she ran into an acquaintance who knew just about everything about horses. After explaining the problems, the lady told her, “It’s probably his teeth. Bring him to my place next week. I have an equine dentist coming, and we can have him take a look.”
Tthe vet looked at Windsor. He told her, “Yep, it’s his teeth.” Three hours later, and with a whole lot of drugs, Windsor finally had teeth that worked. The vet told her, “This poor horse had one of the worst cases of bad teeth I’ve ever seen. He’s darned lucky you found him when you did. He would have starved to death in less than two years.” Julie thought about how miserable Windsor was before she had his teeth fixed and swore he would never experience pain like that again.
Julie’s life changed for the better right then. The woman she talked to about Windsor was looking for someone to hire for her company. She offered Julie the job. Before Julie could catch her breath, she became the new CFO of a large manufacturing company. Julie rescued Windsor, and Windsor rescued her right back. Love goes both ways, especially with an Arabian.
By the end of that summer, Windsor looked like a new horse. His weight came back up to normal, and Julie began riding. No more tossed bits. Once again, she could fly across the soft black dirt, mile after mile on the wide-open prairie. She rode with friends and their quarter horses. After one rough backwoods group trail ride, a man came up to Julie and said, “I never in my life thought I would say this, but that’s one hell of a horse!” The man was a renowned Quarter Horse trainer who would never look twice at an Arabian.
Julie entered Windsor in a local parade. Up and down the parade route, people loved the flashy, high tailed Arabian horse. One day she was shopping in a fabric store and saw some beautiful fabric on sale. She bought it and made a costume for her and Windsor in a beautiful blue color. She liked it so well, she made another one in gold for her gruella horse and one in pink for her paint horse. With two of her friends, they traveled with the three horses and costumes to enter local parades.
Windsor loved parades and loved people looking at him. He stepped a little higher and sashayed his tail a little harder. It brought smiles and cheers from the crowd. As the beautiful white Arabian and his “Princess” rode by, not a single little boy or girl didn’t wish they had an Arabian horse of their own. They swarmed around Windsor at the end of the parade, asking for rides that Windsor was happy to give them. He loved every pet, and every treat they offered. He turned a lot of heads and changed a lot of attitudes about Arabian horses with those appearances. Arabian horses became more popular in Julie’s area of the world.
Over the twenty years Windsor’s been with Julie, they’ve done many different things. In the fall, he helps move cows from their summer grazing area to the winter pastures. Windsor’s a good cow horse. He loves to chase errant cows down and get them back where they belong. They’ve also participated in rodeo events like barrel racing, pole bending, and magic carpets just for fun.
Windsor is now 27 years old. He’s slowing down with age. His time of starvation is beginning to catch up with him like the vet said it would. He’s having a harder time with the cold temperatures of North Dakota winters. His teeth are nearly gone. Julie knows Windsor will not be with her forever, but he will remain forever in her heart, her “heart horse.”
Julie's tribute: “Racing across the prairie, the wind in his mane, his tail held high, waiting for me on the other side of the river, until we are once again together.”
Victoria Hardesty and Nancy Perez are the authors of a series of novels about Arabian Horses and the people who love them.
Their work can be found at www.authormasterminds.com/victoria-hardesty-and-nancy-perez