{"id":1464,"date":"2001-12-18T20:44:38","date_gmt":"2001-12-19T02:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2017-12-06T08:19:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T14:19:51","slug":"a-christmas-miracle-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/a-christmas-miracle-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas Miracle Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman approached me during a natural horsemanship clinic.\u00a0 She told me that she was looking for a fox trotter to purchase.\u00a0 Lynne said that she was a “green rider”, and had taken 6 lessons.\u00a0 She had an appointment to visit a gaited horse of a lot more excitable bloodlines (Paso Fino).\u00a0 I grimaced inside and hoped she would live thru it.\u00a0 She called me with the news that she barely lived thru it.\u00a0 Thank goodness she didn’t ride the horse.\u00a0 So in\u00a0over a period of time, I showed Lynne the Missouri\u00a0 Fox Trotter web sales web sites and she arranged to visit 4 horses in southern Missouri. On Tuesday, off we went on our 15 hour day.<\/p>\n

When we arrived at the Bob and Jerri Delcour’s ranch, it was our first meeting with Amazing Bob.\u00a0 Bob, trying to size up my friend, asked her what kind of rider was she and what kind of horse did she want.\u00a0 She replied that she needed a horse that would take care of her and that she is a “green rider”.\u00a0 Bob asked her what color she wanted.\u00a0 Lynne met that challenge well and replied, “Color doesn’t matter, only a horse that will take care of me does!”\u00a0 Even though I wasn’t looking for a horse, Bob asked me what kind of rider I was.\u00a0 I told him that I have fox trotters and ride often.<\/p>\n

After more friendly chatting, Bob brought out 3 horses that represented a spectrum.\u00a0 Five year old Brownie was a horse that has to be thumped or spurred to move faster than a walk.\u00a0 Flashy was a horse that was just a little over a green rider’s ability.\u00a0 Yeller was Lynne’s horse from the beginning!\u00a0 He was just right!<\/p>\n

Bob surprised us and took us out on a real trail ride! I got to ride Brownie.\u00a0 It was a horrible experience.\u00a0 I had to thump AT LENGTH on the Brownie’s rear with a crop to get him to speed up to a fast walk.\u00a0 Occasionally, I got up to a fast walk!\u00a0 I didn’t have Bob shorten my stirrups, so I was riding in the saddle “bareback”.\u00a0 I kept squeezing my entire lower body to get this horse to go, while thumping.\u00a0 I started getting sore about a half-mile out.\u00a0 This was embarrassing.\u00a0 I whined at Bob.\u00a0 I whined at Lynne.\u00a0 Shoot, they were having a great time with their horses!\u00a0 They just smiled and rode on.\u00a0 Lynne was falling in love with Yeller.<\/p>\n

My horse passed all the scary things without batting an eyelash.\u00a0 We walked over railroad tracks.\u00a0 Diesel trucks went roaring by us in the ditch by the side of the road.\u00a0 We stepped on road trash.\u00a0 We passed by a culvert.\u00a0 We even came upon a bulldozer that was operating and scooping dirt very close to the road where we were riding.\u00a0 My horse never missed a step.\u00a0 He never even looked at all this potential horse-eating monsters.\u00a0 The other horses occasionally trotted off and left us.\u00a0 My horse didn’t care.\u00a0 Later, I tried to get\u00a0my horse to run back to the barn.\u00a0 That’s where I got the 7 fast steps, then right down to our favorite walk.<\/p>\n

When we got back to the barn, I asked out loud, “Why would Bob put me on a horse like this?”\u00a0 KABOOM!<\/strong> A lightning bolt flashed through my head!<\/p>\n

I have a friend who fell off her horse and hit her head on a railroad tie.\u00a0 She got a concussion. About 8 years before that, she was in a car wreck and had brain damage…the kind that you can slowly recover from.\u00a0 When she fell off her horse and hit her head, she was overcome by overwhelming fear that she would have to go through brain damage again.\u00a0 Since her accident, she was unable to ride her horse faster than a walk.<\/p>\n

Her horse was around 35 years old and died about 2 years ago.\u00a0 For two years, she has been telling our lunch crowd at work that she needs a young horse that will only walk.\u00a0 She was serious.\u00a0 I chortled inside at the thought of a young horse that would only walk.\u00a0 In your dreams!<\/p>\n

NOW KABOOM!\u00a0\u00a0 I was sitting on Roberta’s horse.\u00a0 I had discovered the Young-Horse-that-Will-Only-Walk!\u00a0 He was real after all!\u00a0 It was eleven days before Christmas!<\/p>\n

When I came back to work the next day I told Roberta that I had found her horse.\u00a0 I described my trail ride.\u00a0 Roberta clapped her hand to her mouth and said, “Lately, I’ve been praying hard for my horse to be found!”\u00a0 Roberta had 3 days to come up with the money.\u00a0 She did it.\u00a0 The other obstacle that she overcame was getting her husband’s permission to buy a horse!\u00a0 This is even more amazing considering that it’s ten days till Christmas!<\/p>\n

Roberta also works with a church group of young troubled\/abused teenagers.\u00a0 They will also be riding this horse that will only walk …. in almost perfect safety.\u00a0 Roberta has grandchildren that will be riding Brownie in near perfect safety!<\/p>\n

Finally Saturday came we were all full of anticipation and excitement.\u00a0 We made the 4 hour drive and drove up to the big red barn and met an excited Bob and Jeri.\u00a0 They were all big grins.\u00a0 The three of us women were all big grins too. That made 4 big grinning women and one wild grinning man.\u00a0 Into the barn we sailed.<\/p>\n

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Bob took Roberta over to meet her horse.Roberta gave a small cry of happiness.\u00a0 Standing in the cross ties was the most beautiful bay horse ever.\u00a0 Brownie had a long beautiful Christmas Ribbon and a Christmas bell on his head.\u00a0 It was instant love.\u00a0 Roberta went up to pet Brownie and tell him that his name was now DASHER!\u00a0\u00a0The rest of us stood around with big goofy grins.<\/p>\n

After we recovered from this sight, Bob went to get Lynne’s horse.\u00a0 He led out a cross dresser! Lynne couldn’t believe what her horse had added since she last saw him.\u00a0\u00a0Is it a Christmas Fox Trotter Reindeer!?\u00a0 Yeller\u00a0 had sprouted antlers since we last saw him!
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After a lot of petting, Bob saddled up DASHER.\u00a0 Bob rode Dasher first so that Roberta could see that Dancer was not energetic!\u00a0 Bob serenaded us with his rendition of Happy Trails in his big booming tenor voice as he and Dasher slowly walked around half of the arena.<\/p>\n

Roberta felt pretty good about Dasher, but she was tense as she climbed up on him.\u00a0 We sent her on her way. They walked for a while and Dasher stopped.\u00a0 She couldn’t get him going again, so I came over and led him forward and off they went again.\u00a0 I don’t know when she started to relax, but she did.\u00a0 I told Bob that I wanted Roberta to ride outside, so she wouldn’t be afraid to ride outside when she got home.\u00a0 Bob opened up the big arena door and off they went.\u00a0 Well, Lynne led Yeller in front of Dasher so he would walk away from the barn.\u00a0 It was a cold and windy day, but Dasher just walked on!\u00a0 I had to almost force Roberta to dismount from Dasher when it was time to think about leaving.<\/p>\n

Lynne and Roberta paid for their horses.<\/p>\n

Dasher and Yeller hopped into my trailer.\u00a0 What great horses!!!<\/p>\n

Bob and Jerri were going to take us out to lunch before we left for home, but unexpected horse customers showed up and we didn’t get to have that great time.\u00a0 Instead, Jerri slipped some money into Lynne’s pocket for our lunch and gas.\u00a0 We were shocked into non-speech.\u00a0 We Love Bob and Jerri!\u00a0 It will be sad for us not to take another trip to Marshfield to laugh with Bob.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman approached me during a natural horsemanship clinic.\u00a0 She told me that she was looking for a fox trotter to purchase.\u00a0 Lynne said that she was a “green rider”, and had taken 6 lessons.\u00a0 She had an appointment to visit a gaited horse of a lot more excitable bloodlines (Paso Fino).\u00a0 I grimaced inside and hoped she would live thru it.\u00a0 She called me with the news that she barely lived thru it.\u00a0 Thank goodness she didn’t ride the horse.\u00a0 So in\u00a0over a period of time, I showed Lynne…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-christmas-presents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4226,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/4226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}