The Lesson of the Milk Stallion
We were at a barn, looking at
horses. The owners of the barn had
closed off the indoor arena because they had a loose, problem horse. One of the young men summonsed Grandpa –not
because he wanted Grandpa to work with the horse- but because he wanted to show
Grandpa a champion. I don’t remember the
breed but this horse had won every trophy and ribbon in his respective field.
To look at, he was something.
Smooth muscled and sleek, the horse ate up the ground with big strides as it zoomed around the arena. His mane and tail flowed beyond the points of his shoulders and draped low. In a lot of ways I could see how this horse won so frequently. He was beautiful right up to the point that you look into his eyes.
Grandpa listened as I discussed bloodlines in this horse’s pedigree. This was my job, of course, because Grandpa didn’t give a whit about fancy papers. The young man was proud of this horse and went on and on. Eye candy would be an apt phrase to describe this horse but there were things that bothered me. And as I tend to pick up on energy and emotions there was something a little disturbing about the horse that I couldn’t really put my finger on.
Grandpa was oddly silent.
I tried to draw him out about that horse several times over the next few days but he didn’t say much.
The lesson would come nearly a month later.
I went to the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk.
I poured a glass and took a sip.
For a moment, I sort of tested the quality of the milk on my tongue. I noticed Grandpa was standing at the counter with his little piece of cheese and a cup of coffee. If you were around Grandpa for any length of time, you discovered he was part mouse. He had the traditional three meals a day but he also had several mini-meals in between. He nibbled and munched his way through every day and said it was much better for him than eating just three big meals.
“Is this milk alright?” I asked.
He supped his coffee and looked at me for a moment and said, “You just drank some. What’d you think of it?”
“Well, it looks okay. It smells fine but it tastes a little off.”
He offered me coffee.
I wrinkled my nose & tried to decide if the milk was worth the risk.
He motioned for me to bring the jug over and we poured some in a saucer and he tested it. “Don’t know what they’ve done to that milk but it ain’t right,” he decided after a minute.
Pretty soon Mom came through and someone else and someone else. The saga of this very weird milk went on until Mom decided to take it back to the store.
So I joined him with cheese and water.
Grandpa said after awhile, “I was thinking on that fancy bay stallion.”
I knew which one he meant without asking. I’d been mentally dying to know what he really thought of the horse but figured there was a reason he didn’t come right out with it.
He asked me if I thought what was on the inside was more important than what was on the outside?
Well of course I did for all the same moral reasons that mothers around the globe try to teach children that it’s what’s inside that counts. This is immediately countered by every main stream message put out there by media that beauty matters.
Grandpa admitted that he liked a beautiful horse & thought you could feed a pretty one for the same as you could an ugly one.
Well, that was true I agreed.
Finally I told him that it didn’t matter though if the outside was beautiful if the inside was rotten… like the milk that tasted funny. It wasn’t like the milk was going to kill me it was just an awful nasty surprise to take a sip of milk & instead get this weird tasting - & feeling – liquid in my mouth that was nothing like I expected. It looked fine on the outside but the reality of it wasn’t right.
When next I met his eyes, he was grinning at me.
“The stallion and the milk,” I said after a time, “that’s what you think of him. He looks good and moves good but what’s on the inside isn’t what it ought to be. He’s not right. What you see is not what you get where it matters.”
He ate a chunk of cheese and supped more coffee before he nodded. “I hope I’m wrong but when he gets older I’m afraid they’re going to find what’s on the inside will get uglier and uglier.”
This spawned a discussion. Was it the handling or training, I wanted to know? Was it because of the outside package & the ability to get the highly coveted prizes in shows that they let him get away with bad behavior?
Grandpa shook his head, “Sometimes, sister, animal or person is just born different.”
For the next couple of years I traced that stallion back to his breeder, an older couple who’d bred horses for forty years. I spoke with them personally. They remembered the Milk Stallion - as I began to think of him. Oh sure, his beauty stuck in the mind but the manager of the farm had been relieved when the owners sold the colt. Handling him, even as a foal, had not been enjoyable.
It’s a lesson I never forgot but I’ve been frustrated many times by people who buy a horse because of its beauty or color or bloodlines. I enjoy a beautiful horse. I’ve had some fun having a horse of a unique or rare bloodline, a highly sought after color. At the end of the day none of that really matters if you can’t enjoy the horse. If the horse is too hot, too spirited or too full of fire none of the beauty or pedigree matters. In the end it’s like that bad milk.
Shopping for horses is exactly like going to the refrigerator. You know what you should be able to expect when you pull out the milk jug. You pour your glass and drink. And it really is all up to you, as the buyer, to choose to have that nice experience of ice cold milk or a clabbered nasty experience that leaves you sick or unhappy or sadly shy of trying again.
The Milk Stallion lesson is exactly how so many people go into getting a horse all full of anticipation and excitement. But their choice is based on the superficial instead of what’s really important.
Over time, the pair of us would talk in sort of short hand when we’d go see a horse. Until now, I don’t think anyone had a clue as to why Grandpa and I were so fascinated about talking about milk.
COPYRIGHT 2000 TO PRESENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT COPY OR USE CONTENT WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.
To look at, he was something.
Smooth muscled and sleek, the horse ate up the ground with big strides as it zoomed around the arena. His mane and tail flowed beyond the points of his shoulders and draped low. In a lot of ways I could see how this horse won so frequently. He was beautiful right up to the point that you look into his eyes.
Grandpa listened as I discussed bloodlines in this horse’s pedigree. This was my job, of course, because Grandpa didn’t give a whit about fancy papers. The young man was proud of this horse and went on and on. Eye candy would be an apt phrase to describe this horse but there were things that bothered me. And as I tend to pick up on energy and emotions there was something a little disturbing about the horse that I couldn’t really put my finger on.
Grandpa was oddly silent.
I tried to draw him out about that horse several times over the next few days but he didn’t say much.
The lesson would come nearly a month later.
I went to the fridge and pulled out a jug of milk.
I poured a glass and took a sip.
For a moment, I sort of tested the quality of the milk on my tongue. I noticed Grandpa was standing at the counter with his little piece of cheese and a cup of coffee. If you were around Grandpa for any length of time, you discovered he was part mouse. He had the traditional three meals a day but he also had several mini-meals in between. He nibbled and munched his way through every day and said it was much better for him than eating just three big meals.
“Is this milk alright?” I asked.
He supped his coffee and looked at me for a moment and said, “You just drank some. What’d you think of it?”
“Well, it looks okay. It smells fine but it tastes a little off.”
He offered me coffee.
I wrinkled my nose & tried to decide if the milk was worth the risk.
He motioned for me to bring the jug over and we poured some in a saucer and he tested it. “Don’t know what they’ve done to that milk but it ain’t right,” he decided after a minute.
Pretty soon Mom came through and someone else and someone else. The saga of this very weird milk went on until Mom decided to take it back to the store.
So I joined him with cheese and water.
Grandpa said after awhile, “I was thinking on that fancy bay stallion.”
I knew which one he meant without asking. I’d been mentally dying to know what he really thought of the horse but figured there was a reason he didn’t come right out with it.
He asked me if I thought what was on the inside was more important than what was on the outside?
Well of course I did for all the same moral reasons that mothers around the globe try to teach children that it’s what’s inside that counts. This is immediately countered by every main stream message put out there by media that beauty matters.
Grandpa admitted that he liked a beautiful horse & thought you could feed a pretty one for the same as you could an ugly one.
Well, that was true I agreed.
Finally I told him that it didn’t matter though if the outside was beautiful if the inside was rotten… like the milk that tasted funny. It wasn’t like the milk was going to kill me it was just an awful nasty surprise to take a sip of milk & instead get this weird tasting - & feeling – liquid in my mouth that was nothing like I expected. It looked fine on the outside but the reality of it wasn’t right.
When next I met his eyes, he was grinning at me.
“The stallion and the milk,” I said after a time, “that’s what you think of him. He looks good and moves good but what’s on the inside isn’t what it ought to be. He’s not right. What you see is not what you get where it matters.”
He ate a chunk of cheese and supped more coffee before he nodded. “I hope I’m wrong but when he gets older I’m afraid they’re going to find what’s on the inside will get uglier and uglier.”
This spawned a discussion. Was it the handling or training, I wanted to know? Was it because of the outside package & the ability to get the highly coveted prizes in shows that they let him get away with bad behavior?
Grandpa shook his head, “Sometimes, sister, animal or person is just born different.”
For the next couple of years I traced that stallion back to his breeder, an older couple who’d bred horses for forty years. I spoke with them personally. They remembered the Milk Stallion - as I began to think of him. Oh sure, his beauty stuck in the mind but the manager of the farm had been relieved when the owners sold the colt. Handling him, even as a foal, had not been enjoyable.
It’s a lesson I never forgot but I’ve been frustrated many times by people who buy a horse because of its beauty or color or bloodlines. I enjoy a beautiful horse. I’ve had some fun having a horse of a unique or rare bloodline, a highly sought after color. At the end of the day none of that really matters if you can’t enjoy the horse. If the horse is too hot, too spirited or too full of fire none of the beauty or pedigree matters. In the end it’s like that bad milk.
Shopping for horses is exactly like going to the refrigerator. You know what you should be able to expect when you pull out the milk jug. You pour your glass and drink. And it really is all up to you, as the buyer, to choose to have that nice experience of ice cold milk or a clabbered nasty experience that leaves you sick or unhappy or sadly shy of trying again.
The Milk Stallion lesson is exactly how so many people go into getting a horse all full of anticipation and excitement. But their choice is based on the superficial instead of what’s really important.
Over time, the pair of us would talk in sort of short hand when we’d go see a horse. Until now, I don’t think anyone had a clue as to why Grandpa and I were so fascinated about talking about milk.
COPYRIGHT 2000 TO PRESENT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT COPY OR USE CONTENT WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF AUTHOR.