Beetle Bailey - Con Artist
The first hunter/jumper stable I worked at had a nice string of reliable school horses used for regular, daily lessons. Most of them were retired, older show horses who were well-trained and accustomed to an assortment of different rider skills. I would bring them in on Tuesday mornings so they could spend the rest of the week inside the stable, making it easier for me to have access to them for grooming and tacking up for lessons than having to bring them in, turn them out, then bring them back in again from their 14-acre pasture, where they spent their time grazing and just being horses.
On occasion, I would have to go out to the field and catch a few of the other school horses who were only used when absolutely necessary. Sometimes we’d have a lot of lessons scheduled on a busy summer Saturday morning and would need to give the regular school horses some time off in between the all-day classes. This meant getting Beetle Bailey - an ancient, narrow, bay horse around 15.1 hands. His thick, fuzzy, black forelock, mane, and tail were woven throughout with golden hair, something I always wondered about. I assumed he was a Thoroughbred, but maybe he had another breed(s) within his bloodlines.
When I first starting working at the stable, I had no problem walking up to him, clicking on the lead rope, and walking him back to the barn. Once he knew I needed him for a lesson, he made sure to stay just out of my reach. He never ran off, he’d simply turn his head ever so slightly so I couldn’t grab a hold of his halter to snap on the lead rope. I used apples and carrots to try and persuade him, but that only worked about one or two times before he started to avoid me permanently. It got to the point where I would have to ask the other farm hand to bring him in. Beetle Bailey liked him, probably because he never asked anything from Beetle.
Once Beetle was in the stable, I would groom him, tack him up, and hand him off to his rider. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would be summoned into the ring to deal with yet another distraught rider, so I would work on other tasks nearby and wait.
Beetle Bailey was a con artist like no other horse I have ever handled, and I have been around many horses. Without fail, Beetle would start out walking in the lesson with the other horses, only to suddenly come up “lame” on his inside front leg when asked to trot more than twice around the ring. His rider would get nervous when they were asked to keep going. The instructor assured them that Beetle was completely fine (he had been vet-checked regularly). When asked to change directions in the ring, Beetle would miraculously heal on the leg he had been limping on only to suddenly come up lame on the opposite front leg. Hmm . . . Beetle’s riders would sometimes come to tears because they didn’t want to hurt him. More often than not, the rider would pull up Beetle in the center of the ring and dismount.
One rider had been so upset that she insisted on untacking Beetle and turning him back out into the field herself. I agreed to walk with her to make sure the field gates were opened and closed correctly. I told her she was in for a surprise, but didn’t let on to what it was. The three of us headed out to the field, with Beetle still occasionally feigning slight lameness on alternating front legs. She patted his neck and crooned to him as we walked along. Beetle gave her the eye, biding his time.
I opened the gate to the large pasture for her, then asked her to walk in and turn Beetle’s rump away from us. She said that was odd since he was so docile. I assured her I needed her to do as I instructed. She faced Beetle, unclipped the snap, and almost dropped the lead rope in her hand at what happened next.
Beetle Bailey spun around, kicked out at us, and shot across the pasture like a three-year-old race horse, bucking and farting the whole time. I saw him look back at us, like he was laughing again at how he had conned yet another rider. I tried to tell the woman that it was all an act from a very shrewd old horse who had figured out how to get out of doing work, but she and the countless others refused to believe us. They ended up with a horse practically grinning at them, and having a shortened riding lesson. The woman rider said she wouldn’t have believed this if she hadn’t seen it first hand.
Beetle Bailey spent most of his days out in the pasture, enjoying a quiet horse existence, with the exception of only a handful of times when he was needed to help out. We knew it would only lead to unhappiness if he was ever used somewhat regularly, so he was left alone. I never was able to catch him after that day, but thankfully we seldom used him anyway. He was a smart, old horse who had learned how to spend all of his time in the field, conning us all.
