A little guy named Chinuke

Reading all these stories puts a smile on my face, mingled with a touch of melancholy. Reading Alida's descriptions puts pictures in my head and I can see Twister hopping in the vegetable garden with Daan on his back, trying to get him to calm down, or Twister bouncing around the lunging arena. He was a beautiful horse and it is so sad that he had to succumb to African Horse Sickness.

Yes, Alida did not name him, I forgot about the fact that he arrived on the plot already named, but she may as well have named him, and Twister became Twissie...She trained him with voice commands but after he passed away she, understandably, lost her drive and a bit of her dream. (Thank GOODNESS that she started riding again, and she now has 5 new horses on the Honeydew plot (that belongs to Sonia) and Alida has developed into an EXCELLENT rider but the best is that she is the dearest of friends and we can laugh and cry and write together!!)

Not too long after this, I moved to a plot in Chartwell and I moved the horses with me. By this time, I had acquired a little Shetland pony named Chinuke. He was supposedly halter trained but he was the most head shy little thing I have ever seen. He was another little stallion, would you believe?! I often wondered what had happened to the little guy as he seemed almost broken, so aloof and so very, very shy and retiring.

So there I was, with my three stallions, and we moved to Chartwell. It was heaven on earth, to be able to wake up in the morning, look out my front door and see my horses grazing about 50 metres away. After work at night, we would sit on the patio and look over the garden at the horses peacefully grazing and next door we could see a few species of buck and a few ostriches gambolling around, it was utter bliss and we felt very blessed.

One day, the dogs on the plot decided to chase down Chinuke, for whatever reason. Maybe they had excess energy or maybe they were downright delinquent, I don't know, but the results were undesirable. The poor little pony ended up right at the far end of the paddock with a gaping hole in its neck. Now, as you know from my previous stories, when you have animals, you are bound to come across injuries and so you deal with them, but it remains rather challenging when you are trying to comfort and treat a scared and untame little stallion. Believe me, he may have been little, but he had an iron-fisted will!

However, that particular day, as I approached him, he somehow just knew and understood that I wanted to help him. I walked over, looked at the 'eina', held him and started applying the wound spray. Suffice it to say, I always had wound spray in the house. When you have so many animals, you have to be prepared!

Sultan and Chinuke grazing together

The little Chocolate Shetland

Chinuke thereafter continued to try and bite me when I handled him or wanted to move him. He loved kicking back those stumpy little legs to sort out Sultan and the two of them bonded quite easily. To this day I am not altogether sure who ruled the roost. Sultan, the biggest and oldest stallion, or this little chipmunk of a shetland with the heart of the biggest, strongest stallion! The big bay stallion and the little chocolate brown stallion loved grazing together and Czar knew to keep well away from them!