“I guess she became mine because I was the first to ride her,” Jordan says from her perch on the hay bales.


Jordan's mother, Julie Boulter, didn't particularly have her daughter in mind when she selected Cricket, a quarter pony/arab cross, at best guess. “I liked her gaits. She had a good trot.”

Julie looks for horses who seem easy to rehome, either at the Enumclaw auction or at the Yakima feedlot where many of the auction horses end up. Of course, there can be a lot of surprises from horses that have lost their history of pedigree, care and ownership.

Cricket was in good shape when she arrived after a quarantine period. She showed signs of training and seemed comfortable around people, curious and friendly, as though at one point in her life someone truly cared for her.

There was only one real issue with her behavior. “She was a little head-shy, and she had white hair behind her ears.” Jordan says.

“Maybe she pulled back and got cut by the halter.” her mother suggests.

“She still does that.”

This is the kind of question that arises even with horses whose history is known. Whether they were abused, had a bad experience or simply no-one ever had the time to work through the problem, doesn’t really matter – patience and persistence will eventually solve that issue.

However, it is far from the biggest mystery about Cricket.

They’ve had her at the farm since August. In October, Julie was told by her vet that Cricket was pregnant.

So Julie and Jordan tore out a divider wall to make a foaling stall in the barn. They didn’t know exactly when to expect the new arrival, so they thought they had better be prepared.

Mares are sometimes bred at the lot by the stud horses brought in. When her destination was a slaughterhouse in Canada, an accidental breeding was not an issue. Perhaps Cricket was already pregnant when she arrived.

It doesn't really matter who the father is, because this foal is now eagerly anticipated.

Jordan already has a name for it -- Kiyo, from a story she read in a book called Angel Horses about a horse named Cricket and her foal Kiyo.

Cricket was already important to Jordan because she was a school project. As part of an independent study project, she is seeking to prove that natural horsemanship techniques are not only effective, they are a better way for a beginning rider to learn to relate to a horse. “I have a really cool teacher. She lives up the road and she has horses.”

Can studying a horse really provide a benefit and count as schoolwork? It sounds as though Jordan is learning something from Cricket. She summarizes it in one word,“Patience.”

“I used to get frustrated when a horse wouldn’t do what I wanted, or would buck or run away.”

But Cricket was trained. She knew about moving away from the leg. She still demands constant work from Jordan on other issues, though, like unauthorized snacking.

“She’s stubborn,” Jordan says, but with a smile that says she identifies with this quality in Cricket just a bit. There’s a lot to learn there still, but a grudging respect between girl and horse, where each are testing the other’s will, without malice, or pressure, is evident when Jordan rides Cricket bareback around the snowy paddock that Julie and I are cleaning.

“I’m trying to teach her to stay away from the food. I made a mistake with her early on, where I let her graze while I was riding or grooming her or whatever. Now she thinks she can eat whenever she wants.” Jordan nudges Cricket away from the food, “So I release the pressure when she stops trying to grab.”

Cricket still isn’t sure about listening entirely to a rider. As s I walk through the paddock that Cricket is shadowing me as I talk to Jordan and hunt down stray manure. I test a little, stopping, turning – she is with me like a burr.

“That’s exactly how she was when I first rode her, Jordan turns to her mom. “You remember? She followed you around.”

So maybe Cricket was a school horse, taught to respond to the instructor on the ground when not receiving direction from her rider.

It doesn’t really matter, because in the world she is in now, she is the ultimate professor. The more Jordan develops her skills, the better Cricket will perform. And Jordan is already sharing the things she had learned with her friend Anna, not by instructing her, exactly, but by sharing ideas and ways of thinking about communication with a horse.

Of course, Jordan is impatient to know when Cricket will give birth – and to what. I ask her what she thinks the sire was.

“Arabian,” she says without hesitation. “There were a lot of Arabians at the lot.”

Cricket is showing signs of the added burden her body carries. She often no longer runs with the other horses in the pasture, preferring to contemplate and conserve energy.

For now, both Julie and Jordan are going to have to practice Cricket’s lesson. Patience. The foal will come when it is ready.

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UPDATE:

A week or so ago, a friend of Julie's looked at Cricket and thought she might be waxing up. Straw was bought and piled by the foaling stall just in case, and Julie called the vet to take a closer look at Cricket.

He brought along his high-powered tools, and we got an inside view.

Measuring the eyeball of the unborn foal is one way to estimate a due date. More about that at Horsebytes.

The numbers said that Cricket was about seven and a half months along - but they are only an approximation, so sometime in March Julie will begin to monitor her very closely.

Jordan is relieved to hear Cricket has a little time. Of course she is excited about the baby, but she would like to continue to work with Cricket too. There's a school project on the line, after all.

The procedure didn't tell us the sex of the foal, so that's still anyone's guess, as is the father. Not to mention the exact date.

I am betting on April Fools Day. Percheron/pony colt. What's your guess?