The Russian

The Russian

This man showed up about a month ago with 3 (or maybe it was 4) horses. Their coats all caked in dirt, right out of the pasture apparently. He rolled in with a big rig, hauling a stock trailer. Yup, you read right, a real Big Rig. Like the ones truckers drive?
Well, he comes in on weekends, sticks his 3 horses in the three stalls he's been renting. Then he gets Cowboy to take them out there and work them.
When I say work, I mean "official" work. A timed event. From the gate, too.

These horses we jokingly call the Russian Quarterhorses. They all have diarrhea- they walk around the shedrow and invariably leave a trail of the nastiest diarrhea poop right smack in MY shedrow. They're ungroomed. No shoes, no trim, just out of the pasture into the trailer, over to the training center. Apparently the diarrhea is a direct result of a full bucket of whole corn given to each horse as soon as they are put in their stalls. I'm absolutely amazed that these guys don't friggin keel over dead or colicking as soon as they come back from the track.

After they run around the track like persued by a swarm of killer bees (and surprisingly they do actually have quite a bit of stamina and speed although they don't look it), Cowboy comes back to the barn, hands the horse over to the Russian who does the most bizarre thing.
Well, let me back up. Since he's been sending them in pairs, Rick (another rider and actually a starter- one of the guys that works the starting gates at the racetrack) usually gets on one of the others and so there are two horses coming back together.

The Russian ties both horses to the fence across the driveway from the barn. He then gets the hose and group hoses them off. Then they stay tied to the fence until they sort of drip dry. After which, he unties both of them at the same time and walks ahead of them to the stalls. These horses just follow him like little puppy dogs and go into their stalls.

I'm usually not the type of person to judge others. We've speculated that this man must be doing something to train these horses back at home, wherever that is. Perhaps he chases them around the pasture with a 4 wheeler. Or he might actually get someone to gallop them regularly. He says he's on the road with his rig all week. Who knows. Or maybe he's a horse whisperer and has them trained so well, that hey! they train themselves while he is gone on the road!?

Bizarre, to be sure. But they seem happy with him. They obviously trust him.
Go figure...