Farm Fresh Blog

Michigan Sister asked about Montoya. What's his story?

Montoya was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father is the black Andalusian stallion, Conquistador, from Andalusians De Mythos. His mother is a beautiful Paso Fino mare who was a buckskin going grey. Montoya was born in Colorado and was a dark grulla color. 

For those of us not schooled in the elements of color, he was a product of the black mixed with buckskin gene. His mother also gave him the gene to go grey, and so although Montoya was born dark brownish grey, with black points and stripes on his legs, over the years he is slowly turning white.

It is said that a good horse can never be a bad color and so whatever color he is, Montoya is a character. He is easily identifiable in photos not by his color, but by his expression. I bought him as a weanling . He is registered as a Half-Andalusian. Montoya was impeccably started under saddle by Francine Dismukes and Malen Dell and by all rights he should have gone on to a show career, but he was saddled with me.

The delightful woman who has his sire arranged for Montoya to get a spot in a fancy Andalusian training facility. He was rubbing elbows with horses worth more than my house, and yet, I made it clear to Malen that Montoya would never have a show career. He was my therapy horse, my bird-watching horse, and my friend.

I explained that I was divorced and had a high stress job and Montoya was my therapy.  Montoya has soaked up many tears. Many nights I would come home from work, and tell Montoya what terrible thing had happened. There are few things more therapeutic than leaning against a horse while he's eating hay. The slow grinding of teeth grinds all your troubles away.

When he was a baby, I discovered Allen Pogue's Imagine A Horse website. I loved it!  Allen treats his horses the way I treat my dogs. Montoya is the first horse I've ever raised this way.  He learned tricks, and problem-solving skills, and became a highly entertaining and challenging partner.  Montoya loves to interact with humans.

Crusty old cowboys (like Other Half) call him "spoiled" but I prefer to think of him as a lovable engaged friend.  Where they see a meddlesome horse who doesn't know his place, I see a bored, intelligent creature who wants to entertain himself with your tools while you fix the fence.  Where they see a destructive animal, I see a creative creature who has found a new toy. (the red bobber underneath the float valve on the water trough)

One night, shortly after we moved over to the Cow House full time, Other Half was proudly showing me how Musket had learned to step over a blue plastic barrel in the round pen. Nice. And it was. Musket was a green-broke horse, not long out of the pasture. I should have stopped at merely complementing his horse, but the devil hopped on my shoulder and pushed the angel aside. (mostly because Other Half is always putting my horse down.)

So I called Montoya, who Other Half barely tolerates because he considers the horse to be a spoiled, "fairy tale" horse with no real purpose in life. 

 Fairy Tale Horse

 So my fairy tale horse walked into the pen, eager to play.  I pointed at the barrel and said

"Hey Buddy, look at that. Touch it."

Montoya hustled over to examine the new blue barrel. He'd never seen a blueberry blue barrel before and was quite intrigued. It ROLLED!  Yes!  YES! The barrel ROLLED!  And so I asked him to bring me that barrel.  And my good for nothing fairy tale horse rolled that damned barrel across the pen and brought it to me. Montoya and I are were both quite pleased with his fuzzy self. 

Now . . .  I'm sure there are crusty cowboys all across Texas asking themselves this one question,

"So what? What good is a fetchin' horse?"

To them I say this! 

BLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

Give us a kiss!