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My dad regarded the big horse. The stallion came to a sliding halt in front of us, separated only by the five-foot welded steel railing. His nostrils flared, and he released a loud displeased snort. His eyes flashed, his ears flickered, and then, as if he’d seen enough, the horse spun around moving off his haunches with ease, and launched across the space, nearly crashing into the panels at the far end of the arena as he threw a stallions equivalent of a tantrum.
My dad shook his head. “Come with me. I want to show you why I don’t want to sell him.”
Following my dad, I entered the little office at the end of the barn where we kept all our records. “You really should digitalize all these dad.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, grimacing. “Eh, I ain’t got time or patience to sit at one of them damn computers.”
He reached onto the desk, grabbing a manila folder and held it out to me. I opened it, glancing at the registry papers it held within it.Dark Temptationwas typed across the top, followed by a registration number. I thought, wow, nice name, and a bit ominous too. As my eyes scanned over the lineage listed there, however, I gawked. The names typed on this page were too good to be true. On one side, he was all foundation bred, from the finest stallions known, and on the other, it was all new blood. The new blood, however, was the horses that were winning futurities, and appearing on the covers of horse magazines.
Looking up at my dad, I regarded his smug expression. “Wow, just wow. I mean, his breeding is phenomenal, but how did we afford a horse with those kinds of bloodlines?”
My dad laughed. “His brother sold for twenty-five thousand dollars as a yearling. We got lucky because the person who originally bought this stallion from the breeder was so upset by his attitude that they sent him to the sales. We managed to purchase him as a two year old for under half of what they paid.”
I shook my head. Even if my dad had gotten a great deal on him, the stallion was still a problem. “You should have trained him before you started breeding him. I think it would have improved his temper, at least a little.”
My dad nodded in agreement. “I would agree, but he was already this wild and mean. Cody argued day and night that we should start breeding him as soon as possible and train him later.”
I shook my head in disappointment. “Dad! You know better than that. What were you thinking?”
My father shrugged. “I was thinking that I was Bill-the-bull-tamer, and Cody was a champion bronc rider, that between the two of us, we’d have it handled.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head, releasing a long breath. “You were thinking with your pride, not your brain.” When he nodded, I asked, “All right, all that aside, have you gotten any foals from him?”
Now, my dad’s face lit up a bit. Inclining his head, he said, “We’ve gotten three foals from him. You want to see them?”
Whether it was the gleam of pride in his eyes, or the contagious exuberance he exuded, I’m not sure, but I found myself excited at the idea of seeing the prospective foals. A few minutes later, as I walked beside my dad out toward the nearest pasture, I wasn’t disappointed. In the field, a stunning bay filly grazed beside an equally good-looking liver chestnut. I estimated them to be roughly one-to-two years old. I could see the stallion in them, they both had his build, but with slight differences that reflected the breeding of our mares. Both seemed tranquil enough.
“How are their attitudes?”
My dad’s grin would’ve answered the question even if he hadn’t. “They got the docile personality we’ve come to expect from our mares. These two are out of Clancey’s offspring.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay…so, he can throw some really nice foals, when they survive. What we need to do is figure out who to breed him to, and why there have been so many stillborns. And, we need to work on calming him down, for our safety as well as the safety of our mares.”
Beside me, my dad thumped me across the back. “Agreed. Welcome home, my girl. Glad to have you back at my side.”
Spending my day buried in the barn office, I sorted through old files, organizing the horses’ papers as well as the breeding books to make sure everything was up-to-date and accounted for. I dusted, disinfected, and did an overall clean-up in what I had decided would now be my office. Sometime during the middle of the day, my brother peeked his head in, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners as he leaned against the door frame.
“So, dad said your kicking me off the horse breeding management and taking over. Does that mean you’re staying?”
I looked up, feeling overwhelmed with love for my older brother. I’d always looked up to him, idolized the way he could sit a bucking horse or bull. “You upset about that?”
He laughed. “Hell no. I’m way better at running the cattle side of things. Horses are too damn finicky. Besides, there’s never enough time to do both. You see that stud?”
I rolled my eyes. “You mean the psychotic tank of pent-up sexual frustration parading as a horse?”
Cody released a deep laugh. “Yep, that’s the one. He’s something, isn’t he? You have to admit, I made a good call on that one.”
I regarded my brother for a second, noting that although he was now in his thirties, with several kids and a wife, he still was the same wayward cowboy I’d always known. “You picked a stallion with amazing breeding, yes, but you’re an idiot for buying a horse with such a horrible temperament and breeding him before you trained him. Now I get to undo all your foolishness.”
Cody’s face sobered. “Yeah, I realize that was kinda dumb.” His forehead furrowed into a frown. “Dads not gonna let you work with him, is he? That horse is too dangerous for you, Callie.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m as good a rider as you are, Cody.”
He sighed. “I know that Callie, but you’re going to get hurt if you try n’ work with that crazy horse.”
Laughing bitterly, I waved him away. “Go chase some cows, Cody. Leave the horses to me.”
Wednesday came sooner than I could have anticipated. Between organizing the barn office, going through breeding records and researching the stallion’s bloodlines to look for any clues as to how to proceed with breeding him, and helping my mom as much as she would let me, it seemed to whizz by. I was nervous and worried as I sat in the sterile white environment of the Dublin Medical office waiting for my mom. My sister sat beside me, and our brother on the other side, while my father paced across the pristine floors that smelled like bleach and lemon. His scuffed Justin workbooks and faded wranglers completely out of place, as if they came from another planet.
