My name is Vandal. And I am a horse.

And not an ordinary one. I am the noric gelding. I was born in February 1989 in Prestice in the Czech Republic as a son of the mare Jarmila and stallion Hubir. Although I am already an older guy I am a gallant chestnut sparkler. My human lady calls me “Vandysek”, “Golden-Mane”, "Mousebird” or sometimes “Bull”. I really do not understand where she takes the names and I also do not understand her question “You are vandal, aren’t you?”. She’s always scratching, polishing and embracing me. But I am huge tolerant and understand that she adores me and has an abstinence syndrome after the whole week without me. I am simply wonderful. Of course I am not a frebee therefore during the fondling I decently comb through all pockets where a banana could be hidden. The Lady always brings several of them to me. But not suprisingly I like apples and carrot too. I do not complain. I am enjoying a beautiful retirement on the green grasslands not far from Prague. And as we live in the modern world me and my Lady have decided to visit the virtual grassland of the Internet too.

Long-ago

As a young colt I was brought up for work in the forest. As soon as I got strong enough I started to pull tree trunks. It was hard work and one day a heavy wooden pole fell on me and seriously injured my right front and back leg. I got over the injury that time but today I suffer from strong arthrosis on all of my legs and the lumbar backbone. Professional disease, you see. Through horse-trader an old man bought me. I could eat anything I wanted and did almost everything I wanted. As the old man got older and older, I wasn’t forced to hold up my legs because no annoying farrier used to take care of me. And I became really fat and too heavy for my joints and got unhealthy long hoofs. After several heart attacks the old man realized that he would not be able to take care of me in the future and he decided to place me in a horse shelter…

Horseback Riding Job

Finally I didn´t have to go to the shelter. An owner of small ranch situated near Prague bought me for a symbolic price and she decided to teach me to go under saddle. At the time I had an overweight and overgrown hooves.

In the beginning I fougt against the rancher. After the previous experience my character got rather stubborn and I didn't want to give anything to anybody for free. I refused to obey, to give my feet, I slided the ranch occupants over the farmstead and I also demolished something quite often.

The rancher was hard on me but it´s necessary to say that she got me in better bodily condition, especially my hooves, and due to her I finally learnt the life on grasslands within a batch of horses.

I do not like conflict situations. That´s why I always played the lowest roles in the horse herd hierarchy and was rather an outsider... But I met a friend. Her name was Lenka, the last Czech coldblood. She was shattered by the hard work in forest and by cruel carters. And unlike me she lost all love for people, especially for males. But we came together.

When I learnt the groovy life of the ranch my relationship to the ranchers improved and everything got better. Although I had to work under the saddle and carry the riders many hours a day I enjoyed that job. Due to the rides I felt important, almost like a leading member of the herd. I always pursued the leading position and wasn´t willing to give it up. This horseback riding job lasted just about three years of my life.

My Lady

At the end of 2005, I used to carry one lady from Prague quite often. She wasn’t too skilled in horseback riding and to be honest still she is not. This lady was absolutely smitten with my personality. When the ranch owner found that the lady was fond of riding me, she started choosing me for her rides intentionally. During the winter of that year only several riders were willing to ride in the cold, wet and windy weather. The absence of the clients made the ranch owner to render the following decision. She decided to quit providing the horseback rides and start to lease her horses. This way she leased me and three other horses to the riders who rode in both the good or bad weather. This change took place in March 2006.

But in April we were offered for sale. I knew the lady would have missed me too much to be able to say no to the offer. It was such a kind of ultimatum for her (to buy the beloved horse or to see him never more). Later she confessed that even a few minutes before she hadn’t been able to even imagine that she could have her own horse in no distant time. But it happened. Making up her mind lasted about three minutes.

I knew she was a namby-pamby and it took us a while before we learned how to go along one with the other. She used to neglect many of my whims and wasn’t able to get angry enough. I slightly overdid it sometimes. In the course of time she made up how to show me that it had been too much and I learned to respect it. We are rather partners, each of us has his own personality.

Since that time I haven’t walked under anybody else, with a few exceptions. And since that time I haven’t worked several hours a day, but only at weekends. During the workweek the lady had to work until the evening and had no possibility to see me.

Mostly we went for a ride to nature and luckily for me we used the grass arena only rarely. The work in the arena was too difficult for me because of the annoying arthritis and the lumbar synchondrosis. (My doctor strongly recommends no work in arena to me.) But that time the lady didn’t know that yet. Nor did she search for the reason for my disobedience during the arena work. She believed the ranch owner’s story, according to which I had hanged about my whole life and was just ugly. The rancher heard the story from the previous owner – the old man.

The Gentleman.

The ranch owner heard from the vet that I should move as frequently as possible to keep my arthritic joints movable. So she decided to increase my originally advantaged stabling fee by fifty percent since the beginning of January 2007.

The Lady decided to look for a second rider. She did it mainly because of the financial reasons but also because of my need for the regular movement during the workweek.

She failed to find anyone for long time, but finally in the end the spring 2008 one gentleman replied to her advertisement. He was looking for a calm horse for rehabilitation. Thus I got another fan falling for me.

It was a little bit bothering when he grooming me and cleaning my hooves about two hours (now I am exaggerating a little) but on the other hand, I knew that he was really interested in my health. What wouldn’t I do for my fan!

My lady also had all kinds of efforts to look after me, especially concerning my chronic thrush problem. She tried almost everything possible and finally she got my feet in an acceptable condition. But the hoof of my arthrotic right front leg is still problematic. The thrush is probably relied with the ossified cartilage too.

The Lady tried a preparation called Thrush Buster from the Mustad company. It was sufficient to apply it on the hooves just once a week and it really worked. But as I say, the thrush is my chronic issue...

I believe that thanks to the gentleman’s interest in my health the approach of the Lady slightly changed. She became more inquisitive and careful.

Pilgrimage

At the beginning of August 2007 I took a weekly journey to the river Berounka together with the Lady as my rider. It was a damned collar-work but I coped with everything: the rapid pace of the other horses of our group, dangerous terrain and the stress.

In the beginning I was not too happy about the organization of the camping ground. The other (much younger) horses were very hard to me and did not allow me to either feed or relax. I lost part of my weight and gained a lot of scars as all of us were shoed. Luckily for me the riders set apart a special paddock which I shared with a cold-blooded young mare Darka. My Lady worried about me, although otherwise she enjoyed the pilgrimage a lot.

What I really did not like was the return journey. The other horses with their riders sneezed at me and ran home too quickly. The Lady was pretty angry about their lack of courtesy and felt unhappy about me trying hard to keep the time. But the pace was not my only problem. As we ate only in the morning I was terribly hungry during the last hours of the journey and tried to eat anything green around me. It made us even slower…

The other day the Lady told me that I was absolutely amazing and she expressed her thanks to me. But with regards to the dark sides of the pilgrimage she promised she would never ask me to take any pilgrimage like this in the future. And she kept her promise.

Move to new grasslands…

In December 2007 the ranch owner raised the stabling fee by one quarter. She did it in fact without any serious notification, from day to day. Such a big fee was too high for my Lady to pay. In addition the Lady had some doubts on the quality of the paddock and the regularity of feeding. And she was also worried about my hooves. She tried to get rid of my thrush but I spent a major part of each day standing by hay-bale with my hooves deep in muck. This fact was making the Lady’s effort rather ineffective.

She wasn’t too happy about leaving the ranch. For certain while she believed that everything could improve somehow. But then she found out that the ranch owner had a special ability to lie like a print. Seriously disappointed Lady decided to leave together with other two owners of the mare Rose. My Lady was quite remorseful concerning my relationship with my mare-friend Lenka, but there was no other choice. I was expected to move to new pastures.

The transport took place without stress and I had no trouble with getting on and off. The younger colleague Rose jammed for a while when getting out. I must say that in the beginning she took me under her protection against the local herd. But concerning the feed she behaved to me as a battle-ax. I quite enjoyed the grassland with its creek, but I missed Lenka. No one wanted to become a friend of mine. On the other side I was looking forward to my Lady more than before.