Don’t get me wrong. How can a seven-year-old horse be old? When I bought him I had agreed with the seller to find him the perfect new home or bring him back to her to care for him. He would still be my horse and I would pay her $50 a month to care for him. She rescues horses.

After a few years of caring for Zack we got used to each other. He had come to realize that I wasn’t a bad servant. I stopped reading my book, Horses for Dummies, concluding that the publishers had the right title for the book. Zack still qualified as an extremely beautiful horse, with a few almost invisible battle scars. I guess I have to admit that I qualified as fitting the second part of the title. I had family members adding advice that I am sure was included in the book somewhere.

I began to wonder how long our relationship might continue. I am retired, according to AIM and IRS, though neither knows my current job: my horse’s servant. Zack should have been in obedience school and I should have been his beloved teacher, but the fact of the matter was that he was living on my farm, in my barn, was fully grown, and was far from independent. I needed kids and grandkids to come teach him. He wasn’t concerned at all and did no work, he just looked beautiful especially when he was galloping swiftly in the snow.

One can find any kind of information on Google. Here is what I found:

“Depending on breed, management and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years.

Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and, occasionally, beyond. The oldest verifiable record was “Old Billy”, a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62.”

Zack would finally be old when I was 90.

I had tried to teach him once, actually hiring someone to do it for me. When we took a trip to AIM, so Ellen could cater for a week of mission meetings, I had to do something with my horse. I sent him to boarding school and I optimistically thought he would return well trained and cooperative. I’ve shared my disappointment about those results earlier.

Zack was healthy enough when he returned, but had some marks on his previously flawless, lightly dappled coat. When trying to do my horse-owner duties, grooming him while he ate the grain from the top of his feed box, I discovered that he hadn’t been a good boy at the horse boarding school.

Gelded horses aren’t supposed to behave like stallions, but what were obviously bite marks no doubt came from another horse. I wondered if he had given as good as he got.

I never found out, nor was I accused of having a horse that misbehaved, but I had seen Zack bite at the arm of the horse woman who had picked him up for his training. I knew Zack wasn’t interested in being dominated by me. The horse boarding-school wasn’t really called that, but Zack wasn’t the only horse there. He apparently resisted a horse that thought school was the place to prove his power. I don’t know any details, except that Zack didn’t want me to do anything to his wound.

My perfect horse had a sore, starting to show signs of infection, and I knew that a strong animal antiseptic called Blu-Kote was what was needed. Beneath the crust I could see a trickle of puss had left a stain on his white coat. I wanted to scrape off the scab to expose the infected area and treat it.

The grain on top of the box helped him stand still for the grooming, but as soon as I scraped off the scab, he backed up so fast I had no opportunity to apply the antiseptic. I got out of his way with the pure instinct of self-preservation, ducking immediately under the strand of electric wire dividing the barn. Gratefully, Zack was outside and I hadn’t been kicked or trampled. Though he had left some grain on the box this time, he would come back again to be fed. I’d spray the Blu-Kote on the open sore then, reaching between the planks when his head was buried in the manger. He ended up not liking any kind of spray and trusted me even less, but the sore healed, leaving a scar that proved he hadn’t run away when challenged.

Summer came and Jessi was exactly the age to know what do to with horses. My granddaughter told me he needed a round pen and I could train him there. Well, I thought it would be an opportunity to let her train him, she sounded like she had written, or at least read my book for ‘dummies.’

I made the exercise circle to her specifications. Zack watched the process from his pasture, looking over the electric wire gate that kept him there. We didn’t want him helping. He was so curious that he would come and get in the way, probably not intending to hurt anything, but he still had those teeth just behind his soft lips.

Sure enough, Zack agreed to run around in a circle for Jessi and could probably learn all her commands, if he felt like it. He still wasn’t cooperating when we put on the halter, probably concluding that it was a sign of his losing his independence. I think Jessi enjoyed working with him and she even took him for a walk down the road to Grandpa Bearce’s pond. Zack promptly went in, enjoying the cool water on the hot summer day. Jessi had introduced him to another luxury to be found on Grandpa Paul’s farm.

When Jessi heard that he was registered she wanted to see all the details and we looked up his certificate. I saw no reason to pay the fees to keep his registration current since I certainly wasn’t into showing horses. The details of the breeder and former owner were on the paper and my granddaughter wanted more answers than I could give her! She contacted the former owner.

The owner said Zack was five years old, and he was half-Arabian and half-Shetland. The sire, a Shetland pony, possibly the one that was offered as the perfect pony in her ad, had contributed to Zack’s short stature and foul temper. She also shared that he was registered as half Arabian because the mare was from a long line of full Arabian horses. His registered name was ‘Asil Exactly That’, and Zack was just his stable name. Since he was registered, he could be entered into shows and at special events competing to win ribbons or trophies! Jessi carefully copied down all of the information and started a plan to work with him right away.

What she came to realize is that the cunning of Arabians and the stubbornness of Shetlands do not make a cross that is readily trained. She resolved to do it anyway.

Zack was taken back to his training, running around and around his exercise circle with Jessi in the middle teaching him to obey. She held a short white rod to motivate him to follow her commands. I think Zack and his instructor were having a clash of wills, because Jessi explained to me that Zack would eventually come to her, and put his head down to acknowledge her authority. I wondered if that would ever happen! She also said that he had tried to bite her several times.

When I came back later, I found them still at it, but now Zack’s coat was wet with sweat and I could see flecks of foam on his muzzle, but he was still running as fast as before. Foam had also collected where his legs repeatedly rubbed against his body. Apparently he had yet to yield when she ordered him to stop, and offered her hand to him. He just refused to come, so she started him running again. She was still looking for the desired response and wouldn’t let him have his own way.

I happened to be there when she again told him to stop and held out her hand, then said something to him and he came to her with his head lowered and nosed her hand. Obviously she had established her authority and they understood each other.

The next thing would be to take a long anticipated ride on that beautiful horse. I had thought of the pleasure it would be to ride down to the pond, maybe catch the beavers at work in the early morning while there was still mist hovering over the quiet water.

They might be dragging branches they had cut from young willow trees to add to their winter underwater pantry near their lodge. They could be maintaining the dam around the pond. They had decided that great grandpa should have made the pond deeper, had plugged up the overflow pipe, and were maintaining the level that they wanted in the pond. The beavers never quit working. It was time for Zack to do something useful, something God had designed him to be able to do.

Jessi may have had that sort of ride in mind, or possibly up the hill to ride on the trails in the woods. Hadn’t Zack told her he was ready to do anything she wanted?

Jessi got her uncle Jeff to help by putting the saddle on the spirited horse. Zack had gained a lot of weight in his luxury life, at the old man’s farm, and the girth strap was barely long enough to reach the buckle. The strap should normally pass through the ‘D’ link a couple times to draw it tight. The saddle was designed not to rub on a horse’s backbone, and the soft horse blanket was under the saddle. My horse’s anatomy resembled a barrel, so there was really no risk of rubbing on the spine but the girth strap really did need to be tight. Jeff was strong pulling the strap and securing it the best he could. Though Zack was far from still he seemed resigned to the fact that he would shortly be ridden.

Jeff led Zack out of the barn and Jessi must have felt rewarded, when she was mounted on that beautiful horse. She knew how to ride and headed down the gravel towards the road. This was what Zack had been designed for. Jeff’s powerful hand was no longer on his bridle.

I didn’t see it, but before they even reached the road, Zack rebelled and abruptly dumped her off. He wasn’t about to accept this as his role in life, though he had been created so perfectly to be able to do it.

The saddle was still in place. Jessi refused to quit, she was determined to ride that horse. Jeff was still there and Zack just stood there, ready for whatever might be next. He didn’t run across the narrow country road into the lush field of alfalfa, like he might have.

Jeff again had hold of his bridle and so he stood still while she mounted again. She knew that the rider must never let the horse have his own way after he has thrown off the one in the saddle. I guess that is taught in the Horses for Dummies book too.

She rode him down Weeks road, but certainly the anticipated harmony of guiding a willing, beautiful, horse was gone. They came back. I can’t recall if they went anywhere special. The desired joy of being together, the powerful horse also finding pleasure in sharing new places, wasn’t realized. The saddle was removed. Zack was released into the barnyard.

He shook himself, and then walked to the shallow hollow where he liked to roll in the dust, turning completely over, his legs kicking in the air as he twisted himself on his back administering his own luxurious back rub. He did it again, and a third time. Grey dust cascaded off of him as heaved up, front feet first, then shook himself mightily. He felt good. No dust clung to him as he hadn’t sweat at all in what was to be the final contest of wills with Jessi. She was growing up.

Zack and I had long since accepted our roles as horse and servant. I still liked having him around and he would always come to greet me when I approached his ornamental white fence found on every horse farm. He looked for the special treats Micah and I brought to him, corn husks or even a skinny carrot from the garden too thin to peel.

He always waited just the other side of the fence and watched Ellen weed her garden, looking for weeds to be thrown over the fence into his pasture. I think he must have been a little lonely, never dreaming that submitting to one greater than himself could open a whole new wonderful world to explore together.

There are young people who have never left the security and luxury of their homes, who seem to have no desire to grow up, take responsibility, and use the skills and talents God has given to them for others. They appear to be as reluctant as my young powerful horse to do what he was designed to do.

Those undeserving ones that God has called, He has granted the faith to believe in Him, He has also created them for good works, to do them, not simply to live in luxury.