a buddy for masada
by shannon knapp

I first met Masada in Texas about ten years ago, when I got back into horses after a long hiatus.

Signing up for a “Learn to Ride Western” class at the adult ed center, I was paired with Masada for the duration of the class. He was then about 12 years old, stood a comfortable 14.2 hands high, and was a predominantly white horse speckled with black. Something about him evoked a loner and a stoic: he appeared to know full well what his job was, and seemed ambivalent about it. His job (in this phase of his life) was to teach riders how to ride.

I loved him right off, as he was gentle and slow with me, back in the saddle after many years away. The instructor of the class loved him, too, and she soon bought him for her own. An Arabian, Masada has a particularly bouncy trot that can be very difficult for a new rider. Because of this, Masada had been having back problems his current barn manager didn’t recognize or didn’t care to address. I followed Masada and the instructor to a new barn, continuing to relearn skills and simply spend time with Masada. He was not an impulsive or emotional horse, and didn’t seem to mind being separated from other horses. In fact, he didn’t seem to have any real emotional ties to anyone, horse or human. Although we knew little of his history and nothing of his lineage, we knew that his name, Masada, meant fortress, referring to a location during a specific battle. The strong but sad name seemed to fit him.

After a while, I began to pursue buying my own horse, so my husband began riding Masada. They were a good pair, and when that instructor told me she was going to sell Masada, I knew we could not find a better horse. So we bought Masada, and I found Susan Denero, “Black-Eyed Sue”, my mare (see earlier article in WNC WOMAN: Borrowing Freedom). Later, we decided to move them and us to North Carolina. After we made the move, and it was only Sue and Masada rather than a barn full of horses, Sue was restless and anxious, while Masada was his usual loner self. Sue seemed particularly upset by not having a horse friend to groom, run, play and swat flies with. Masada didn’t appear to miss all the other horses, or to ever want or need that sort of bonding and affection. Sue, however, was lost without it. So we looked for and found Dreamer (our Palomino) to meet Sue’s emotional needs, and our herd began to grow.
With each arrival (and we are at 13 and holding, for now!) Masada has been our “baby-sitter” horse: new horses are always turned out in pasture with Masada first, as they get their bearings in their new surroundings. His calmness and equanimity inspire confidence in the new arrivals, and Masada has always been happy to help in this way. Yet he has never seemed to become attached to anyone or to mind when separated again later.

He was not, however, the first horse we turned out with Lucky, a 20+ year old starvation case who came to us in early January of this year. Lucky was an emaciated black gelding who was on stall rest and then limited pasture time, while Masada was on “vacation” from his work as a therapy horse at Horse Sense of the Carolinas. After several months of rehab and care, Lucky was ready to move to a bigger pasture at the main barn, and as both Lucky and Masada are the same age and have the same laid-back disposition, we turned them out together so the youngsters wouldn’t pester them. When Masada would come in to “work”, Lucky would stand at the fence and holler for him, which was to be expected. What we didn’t expect was when Masada started to cry after Lucky.

Masada had bonded with Lucky. It was so unexpected we hadn’t even looked for it. After all, he’d been turned out with 10+ horses in the past 4 years, and had barely even seemed to notice when any of the other horses had been moved from his pasture. Lucky brings out a side of Masada we’d never seen before, and Masada brings out a young, playful Lucky, something we never thought we’d see of the sad, thin creature that came to us in January. They are now permanent pasture mates, and are currently joint baby-sitting the new mustang at the farm. Soon it will be just the two of them again, and they’ll go everywhere and do everything together: eat, drink, graze, snooze. They gallop off like young ponies when they get off work. They groom each other. They stand in the shelter during the heat of the day, head to tail, swishing flies off each other’s face, in a slow, methodical way, like breathing. Standing in the field like that, one black horse and one white horse, they look like the Yin/Yang symbol— balancing each other.

 

Shannon Knapp is the president and founder of Horse Sense of the Carolinas, Inc, offering Equine Assisted Psychotherapy in WNC. Horses have been a significant part of the healing process for her, and she is honored and grateful to be able to share the wisdom and grace of horses with others. Shannon lives on a farm with her husband, Richard, and their dogs, cats and horses.