Sophie's Story

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ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">                                                                         </div> <div> <I>On the 13th of June 1991 whilst the thunder roared and the lightning flashed there was a birth. Well OK, perhaps there wasn't actually thunder or lightning but there should have been!</I></div> <div> <I>On that night at 11.45pm my future eventer was born. (Anybody that knows Sophie please, don't laugh too hard at that last comment!)  </I></div> <div> <I>Let me start at the beginning - My mother owned a chestnut mare called Amber. Amber was a 16.2hh TBx Hunter. Unfortunately she was not a very nice horse and known locally as a schizophrenic....all vets and blacksmiths feared her.</I></div> <div> <I>Mention the word "jump" to Amber and she would with out a doubt go totally lame. So it was decided that we would put Amber in foal and hopefully get a horse that I could compete on.</I></div> <div> <I>We chose a 16hh TB dark bay Stallion called Street Corfu. The deed was done and we patiently waited 11 months for the product.</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>The foaling stable was 1 mile from the house, so on the night that Amber had waxed up we thought that we would go and check her.</I></div> <div> <I>Sneaking to the stable we peered over the door and low and behold  lay Amber and a tiny little foal lying behind her still in its sac.</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>Amber was looking rather dazed at this point until the little foal started to move about.</I></div> <div> <I>When the foal attempted to get to its feet Amber lunged to her feet, picked the foal up by its neck and threw it across the stable.</I></div> <div> <I>We could not believe what we were witnessing!!</I></div> <div> <I>Once again the foal tried to get up and Amber went to attack it.</I></div> <div> <I>We realised at this point that we had a problem and we had to get the foal out of the stable.</I></div> <div> <I>Amber was going crazy, lashing out with her hind legs. We dragged the foal out of the stable and luck was with us that night as Amber kicked out at my Mother ( who at that second I dragged through the stable door) and dislodged a breeze block from the wall where my mother's head had been moments before.</I></div> <div> <I>Immediately we were on the phone to Father and the Vet who got there as soon as he could.</I></div> <div> <I>The vet came out and sedated Amber in the hope that she would allow the foal to suckle .But to no avail.</I></div> <div> <I>Meanwhile Father had phoned the National Foaling Bank and was heading to the local hospital to beg a babies' bottle.</I></div> <div> <I>The foaling bank was fantastic and told us exactly what to do....which was to get 8 pints of colostrum into the foal and collect a bag of Aintree Milk Powder.</I></div> <div> <I>Amber allowed us to milk the colostrum out of her and we managed to get 3 pints from her and the foaling bank gave us the other 5 pints that we needed.</I></div> <div> <I>By this time we had named the little filly foal Sophie ( Amber's original name was Sophie which we found out when we tracked down her breeders a few years before)</I></div> <div> <I>The following day Sophie was moved in the back of a car to the stables at home as she had to be fed every 2 hours for 6 weeks.</I></div> <div> <I>After the first week Goats milk was added to her milk and gradually the powdered milk was stopped and replaced totally by goats milk.</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>After 2 weeks Sophie was nervous with visitors and would stand behind us and put her ears back and threaten them!.....was this a sign  of things to come??</I></div> <div> <I>At the end of the first month we bought a little Shetland mare called Bella as a mother figure for Sophie, although Bella adored Sophie and did try to mother her, Sophie showed no interest in Bella.</I></div> <div> <I>Life with Sophie continued smoothly over the next 5 months and we moved from Shropshire to John O' Groats...taking with us a large quantity of goats milk to see her through the long journey.</I></div> <div> <I>At 6 months old she was totally weaned off milk, due to her being hand-reared Sophie crib bites and wind sucks.</I></div> <div> <I>Up until Sophie was two years old, she was handled by family and friends without any bother until one day.</I></div> <div> <I>That day we were working in one of the fields and a friend was grooming Sophie outside the house.</I></div> <div> <I>Suddenly Sophie turned on the friend, kicking and squealing at her whilst attempting to get to us.</I></div> <div> <I>Sadly this behaviour became normal towards any people who hadn't bottle fed her.</I></div> <div> <I>She became so aggressive that we had to put signs up around the property asking people not to touch her because she would attack them.</I></div> <div> <I>When she was two and half years old I gently backed her as I expected problems but once again she surprised me.</I></div> <div> <I>Sometimes she would get stubborn and refuse to move but I would get off and lead her or wait patiently.  </I></div> <div> <I>By this time Sophie was famous around the county as the " Wild Horse".</I></div> <div> <I>Any advice I was given regarding her behaviour towards people was a "bullet".</I></div> <div> <I>But Sophie was adorable to us and loved nothing more than being in our company.</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>                                              </I><I><IMG SRC="101968b0.jpg" border=0 width="150" height="139" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></I></div> <div> <I>When Sophie was three and half I decided to try and teach her to jump, she went very well the first couple of times over the pole but then decided she wasn't going to do anymore and reared up full height. This was her first ever rear with me  on her and from then on if she didn't want to do anything she would rear up.</I></div> <div> <I>I asked the local vets about Sophie's behaviour towards people...because by now she wouldn't allow a blacksmith or vet near her and we were having to trim her feet ourselves.</I></div> <div> <I>They suggested putting her in foal as it might calm her hormones down.</I></div> <div> <I>I arranged with the local farmer who breeds Highland Ponies to put her in with his stallion the next time she came into season. When she is in season she has been known to try and mount men and this is the only time she will allow strangers near her.</I></div> <div> <I>So the day arrived and with the stallion being directly across the road from our house, we put Sophie in with him and retreated to a safe distance, lovely thoughts of having a delightful foal in 11 months flitting through our minds.</I></div> <div> <I>Sophie stood as the stallion approached her....he was only 13.2hh and Sophie was 15.2hh....she seemed quite interested in him until he bit her extremely hard on the bum!</I></div> <div> <I>Sophie took off like a rocket straight down the field away from us. As she headed towards a barb wire fence and bank, we were sure that she would turn away from it any second. With the little stallion hot on her heels she didn't hesitate, as she sailed over the fence and bank, did a sharp turn to the right and came tearing up the road back towards the house....still with the stallion hot on her heels!</I></div> <div> <I>Over our shock we raced to cut her off, so she couldn't continue up the main A9, but I don't think  she had any intention of going past the house. On reaching the driveway she flew over the wheel bin and wall into the main garden, 3 strides and cleared a 5ft wall and 5 ft spread of rose bushes straight onto the gravelled patio and leapt over the gate into the overhang.</I></div> <div> <I>Now the stallion hadn't attempted to jump over the wheelie bin, instead he went down the drive and tried to jump the gate...I say tried because as I mentioned he is only 13.2hh and its a 5 bar gate! The Stallion hit the gate, half knocking it down but this gave Sophie ample opportunity to escape into the field. I don't think she stopped until she was as far away as possible!</I></div> <div> <I>Now we ran like never before to keep the stallion from jumping in with our other mares. We managed to keep him away from the fence   and luckily one of his mares called him and he went galloping off again, jumped the gate again, only this time getting his back legs stuck in it and dragged it  along the drive before getting free.</I></div> <div> <I>Running back down the road to open the bottom gate the stallion ran back into his mares and seemed to have no ill effects!</I></div> <div> <I>Later that evening I phoned up the farmer and told him I had changed my mind about putting Sophie in foal....I didn't dare mention the episode. But looking back we can see the funny side of it all.</I></div> <div> <I>Life went on relatively peacefully until Bella was tragically killed by the same stallion after he escaped from his field and kicked her in the head causing massive head injuries.</I></div> <div> <I>She was buried not far from the stables out of sight of the other horses but the day after her burial we found Sophie had dug down 3 ft with her hooves. We had to put paving slabs all over the grave to prevent her trying to dig her up.</I></div> <div> <I>In January 1998, wearing my brand new riding clothes I decided to  school Sophie as there was a foot of snow on the ground and everything looked so beautiful.</I></div> <div> <I>My family was working with a car in the driveway making a lot of noise I might add.</I></div> <div> <I>If there is anything exciting going on Sophie likes to be in the middle of it and I made the mistake of refusing to allow her up to see them.</I></div> <div> <I>I remember her starting to rear up and I remember hearing someone screaming ( at that point I didn't realise that it was me), I remember her weight on top of me.</I></div> <div> <I>According to my brothers, she reared up full height and went straight over backwards, falling onto my legs and chest. She rolled around on top of me, got up, and attacked me as I lay on the ground.</I></div> <div> <I>Luckily they had seen it all happen and raced down the field to get her off me.</I></div> <div> <I>My brother Klint was the only one able to get near enough to chase her away with a whip, he managed to catch her then and get her out of the field as she was trying to get back to me.</I></div> <div> <I>They covered me up with a horse rug and called an ambulance.</I></div> <div> <I>As I was lying out in the snow I felt very strange, nothing seemed real, and I was totally calm.</I></div> <div> <I>In hospital they cut all my clothes off me ( I was more upset over this than anything else!).</I></div> <div> <I>I was released later that night with chest and leg injuries and wearing a stiff neck collar.</I></div> <div> <I>I knew that I had to go and see Sophie that night and when I went into the stable she refused to come over  to see me and squealed at me.</I></div> <div> <I>She blamed me for the fright that she got but I needed her to talk to me before I went.</I></div> <div> <I>I persevered and eventually she came over to me and put her head on my shoulder and I knew that all was forgiven.</I></div> <div> <I>A week later I was helped to get on her and managed to ride her around the field, but after that episode my trust in riding Sophie was gone.</I></div> <div> <I><IMG SRC="0ff55960.jpg" border=0 width="85" height="150" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></I><I>In the summer of 2000, an Australian Horse Whisperer Mike Barker was in the county and he called at our house to ask if he could borrow  a horse to ride over the John O' Groats finishing line for publicity.</I></div> <div> <I>We got chatting about Sophie and he offered to work with her in return for the favour to him.</I></div> <div> <I>Later that evening he returned and I put his special halter on that he had brought with him and then handed her to him and retreated to a safe distance.</I></div> <div> <I>Immediately Sophie reared up and lunged at him. Oh the look on her face when instead of running off he went for her instead!!!</I></div> <div> <I>It didn't take long before she realised that she wasn't number one as she had been led to believe through her life.</I></div> <div> <I>Mike explained that Sophie was just like a spoilt brat throwing major tantrums when she wants her own way.</I></div> <div> <I>He said that she had to realise that she wasn't number 1 anymore and because she hadn't been given proper guidance she couldn't handle being top horse with us.</I></div> <div> <I>He asked if I wanted to ride her whilst her was there ( as I hadn't ridden her much since the accident). So I tacked her up.. usually a problem in its self! But, it was like Sophie had been given dope, she was so quiet.</I></div> <div> <I>He explained what to do with her when she goes to rear and how to continue her training once he was gone.</I></div> <div> <I>I haven't gone into much depth about Mike Barker but he was amazing. I never believed that he would be able to work with Sophie in such a short time.</I></div> <div> <I>I have to continue with the training, both on the ground and ridden but I don't ever think that the fear of her rearing up and falling over will ever leave me.</I></div> <div> <I>She still squeals and attacks people but there is an improvement and hopefully that will continue.</I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="stories.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Readers Stories"><U><I> <img src="HTMLobj-373/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="67" height="35">  </I></U></A><I> to Readers Stories </I><A HREF="mailto:stories@equiriders.co.uk" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:stories@equiriders.co.uk"><U><I> <img src="HTMLobj-374/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="67" height="35">  </I></U></A><I> Your Stories</I></div> <bR> <div> <I>©  Copyright Equiriders 2000, 2001, 2002</I></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>