Jellybean

Jellybean was the first pony I had owned that didn’t get sold within the first few months of owning her. The family story is that I would travel with my dad to the horse auctions and on seeing a pony for sale I’d beg him to buy it for me. His friends would say, “Come on Don, buy the pony.” And he would. But apparently I wouldn’t ride the ponies once we had them home and an animal sitting around the farm not being used was a waste and so the pony would be sold.

Jellybean didn’t come from the auction though. She came along with a few other horses purchased from a neighbour just before our move to Northern British Columbia in 1980. Her original name was Babe but that was also my nickname. Jellybean was all white except for some black on her head and a jellybean shaped black spot on her flank. Thus the name.

I had her until I was about sixteen. Maybe seventeen. Jellybean taught me how to ride.

A typical kid I wanted to run Jellybean everywhere. Typical pony she made it difficult for me. I’d just get her going fast and she’d turn and head the other direction sending me flying off into the dirt. Once, while the ground was still frozen, I fell off and then she stepped on my hand. It hurt. Most times though she avoided stepping on me and instead would take off back to the house. Mad, I’d give chase finally catching her by coaxing with a handful of oats.

I soon learned to feel when she was about to turn, the point where I would fall off. I then learned to hang on during the turn. Following that I learned to stop her from turning and then I owned the world. And our farm, with our guiding territory, was a big world. Thousands of acres. Mountains crisscrossed with rivers and creeks often held snow until late June. Wildlife was abundant. Bear, moose, deer and any number of smaller mammals. No people though. And without any other people around it was scary riding out of sight of our old mobile home. Boredom caused me to get over that pretty quickly.

Out in the fields a straight dirt road followed alongside the railroad tracks. It was a big event for me to be out there at one end of my ‘race track’ when the train went through. I’d put my chin deep into Jellybean's white mane, tangling my fingers amongst her long hairs and we’d race parallel with the train. We were fast. Or so I thought at the time. The engineer always waved at me and blew his horn.

I smile today when I think of the scene from the engineer’s view. Out there in the middle of nowhere, a dirty, scraggly haired ten year old kid on her pony running into the wind.

In the 70s my older siblings had helped mom and dad braid the tails of our Percheron show horses. I hadn’t helped but I had watched them. So I practiced with Jellybean. I’d spend hours brushing her, braiding Dandelions and other pretties into her mane and tail. After she was looking good I would pretend that she was a great show horse and I’d jog alongside of her, holding the lead shank to her halter and lifting both our heads high. She hated it. Had her little black pony ears pinned back the whole time.

One spring the river and creeks overflowed so much that most of the roads and trails were covered in water. On the way to the bunkhouse I discovered a low spot in the road that seemed impassable. I sized it up and decided me and Jellybean could get through it. Riding into the cold water it kept getting deeper and pretty soon the water was up to my waist and we were swimming. Yahoo! But Jellybean didn’t think so. She fought me to turn around but I forced her through triumphantly to the other side. I thought it was so much fun that I turned her around and we did it again and again. I even went back with a stolen bottle of shampoo and gave her a bath. She didn’t like that either.

Growing up with my pony wasn’t all about play however. She had purpose, just like the big horses. Just like we all did. Several times my dad had me harness Jellybean and out to the bush we would go. Jellybean and I would stand back out of the way while dad cut down trees for firewood or building material. He’d wave JB and me into the brush and through snow past our knees we would make a path and hook onto a fallen tree. I’d hop onto her back and giving her a kick she would throw herself into the harness and together we would drag the tree out into the clearing. I don’t know why but Jellybean never gave me attitude when we worked. Maybe because she was too busy sweating. Just like a real horse.

Jellybean was our only pony. All the other horses in the herd bossed her around. Except for the brand new babies and Jellybean made a point of putting them in line if they got too close to her. But once the babies had reached a few months old even they picked on Jellybean. I felt bad for her but I discovered when I was riding her the other horses would leave her alone. So to make her feel better I made a point of riding straight through the huge herd and right up to the biggest, meanest, bossiest horses. Jellybean would pin her ears back, glaring at the bigger mares and they’d glare back but move out of our way. She was the boss for those brief moments and I knew she loved it.

Back when we’d had TV I’d watched how cowboys and indians would run up behind their horses and make a two hand jump straight up over the ass of a horse and land on its back. So I tied Jellybean up to a spruce tree and practiced. She hated it. Kicked at me every time I ran straight into her backside knocking the wind out of myself. I got it though, eventually. I was pretty sure it looked cool too.

I knew rodeo horses had a belt tied around their flanks to make them buck hard. That’s a sensitive area for horses, and ponies too as it turned out. I rigged a bailer twine belt for Jellybean’s flank so I could ride her and make her buck. Pretty soon I had her trained where I didn’t need the twine, just move my heels back by her flank and away she’d go trying to buck me off. It made my ride more interesting.

Jellybean had a wall eye. That’s one blue eye, one brown eye. I went outside one morning and could see her standing off by herself with her head hanging low. I knew immediately that something was wrong with her. Living on a farm you get a feel for that sort of thing.

She tried running away but I pretended to have a handful of oats and she fell for it. Looking at her closely I could see her wall eye had been injured. It was oozing liquid down the side of her face. Poor Jellybean.

My dad examined her and he said it didn’t look good, Jellybean would probably lose the eye. He had me blow some sugar in the eye for a period of time. I always thought that was to take the scum off of the eye. Turns out sugar has antibacterial properties.

She lost the ability to see on one side so she became paranoid, always jumping sideways because she thought something might be coming at her on the blind side.

I had outgrown my little pony by then. Not just because I was getting bigger but because I was getting bored. She didn’t seem as fast anymore. And she had become really easy to ride, I never fell off.

Once I was into my teen years I didn’t ride Jellybean at all. Then I wasn’t living with mom and dad anymore. I came home to visit and was told that Jellybean had been put down. I was upset, sad. Dad tried to convince me that Jellybean had foundered and needed to be put down. I didn’t believe him because I had seen her not too long beforehand and her hooves had looked good.

I found out that during hunting season they needed wolf bait. My brother, I think, had taken her out to the woods and shot her. Without me there riding her she had become a waste. No purpose for her to live. That was the reality of farm life.