The Diva

A while back, we had a horse board with us briefly who was elderly and had been a show horse. We tried really hard to provide a space that would work for him, but it wasn't to be. His owner took him somewhere else, and I think we all breathed a sigh of relief.

Then a couple years later we adopted Chancie (My Crystal Chandelier). She is elderly, going on 29, and has been a show horse. Her registered name kind of says it all. 

Chancie doing what she does best - loving on a human. 

As far as I know, her early years were all about being in shows, so she was coddled and protected and spent a lot of time in the safety of a stall, or in a smaller area without any other horses in with her. She is a beautiful Leopard Appaloosa, and even now her body shows the kind of care she had as a youngster. She is in better shape than another rescue we have who is younger (he's 25), who was a ranch horse and pretty much out of gas by the time he was nine. He was a hard working horse, and has the brands and aches and pains to prove it.

Tango (wearing a fly sheet and mask because the flies think he's really tasty) with LiLi and Phineas.

So after having one owner who protected her from pretty much everything, Chancie came to live with us - where the horses are out 24/7 (they have shelters), they share space with one another, and they are definitely not coddled. Chancie probably hasn't been this dirty since she was a baby, and maybe not even then. Our horses are loved and cared for and have regular visits from the vet and farrier, but they are not show horses.

Willa (black) and LiLi (buckskin) in their pasture with shelter.

We tried putting Chancie in with the other horses, after a couple of weeks of getting to know one another over the fence. Things were cool with a fence between them, but when we put her in with someone else, it was all fireworks, and not only in her pasture with her friend, but in the other pastures as well. So she does have her own space. She mutual grooms over the fence with one of the other girls (LiLi), but put them together and it's a very bad thing.

She's also accident prone. She somehow got herself tangled up in one of our safety fences (thank goodness it was safety fencing or she would have been toast!), and ended up with a huge hematoma. She can find things to scrape herself on that the other horses don't even look at. She just doesn't know any better. 

She gets special food, because that's what she likes (and I'll admit it does wonders for her, and I've started feeding it to our other elder, Tango, with excellent results - except to our pocketbook). She didn't like it with water in, and would take her pan and dump it. So we now put it (well moistened) in a different sort of bucket that she can't dump, and she's learned that a dirty face is a happy face. But when we first gave it to her that way, she kept looking on the ground for her other pan, even when I put the new feeder right under her nose and directed her to its location. Slow learner.

All this is to say that I have been there and done that - I've had the horse in the stall, with minimal turnout (and I didn't do much showing). I've blanketed them at the first sign of cool weather. I kept them squeaky clean.

Over the years, I've learned that my horses, at least, are much happier when they're dirty and can move around as much as possible. They only time they go in the barn is when there's a blizzard or it's going to dip into the single digits with wind here. They can still move around, but the space is smaller, and while they do okay, they much prefer being outside, even when the weather is lousy.

Our diva Chancie has actually adapted pretty well to being "part of a herd", but she has her diva moments, and we smile and let her know that yes, she's still special, and yes, she can have some extras that the other horses don't get, and we will protect her. That reassurance seems to be all she needs.

If you want to meet Chancie in person, she's an awesome coach and loves people to the moon and back. She's always the first one to put up her hoof when clients come to the barn, although we do spread the joy around.

Chancie "doing her coaching thing."

Pipes and Ponies is our spring women-only retreat, in June 2025, and there's special pricing through the end of the year. Click the link for more info.

https://www.harmonysheartcoaching.com/pipes-and-ponies-weekend-retreat-june-2025