Youth

NMAA Youth Corner

By: Liz Mero

The Morab

We all know the Morab - half Arabian, half Morgan. The best of both worlds. I never particularly liked Morabs. But today, I met a Morab I won’t soon forget.

Her name is Sazar’s Lucky Lady, aka Lady. A cute bay, she stands a little over 14 hands high and just turning 9 years old, with no white on her whole body. She has the dishy Arab face, small Morgan ears, Arabian’s slender neck, and a mix of Morgan and Arabian build. My friend Sara used to own her, sold her to friends down the road, and to make a long story short, she was getting her back plus a sweet Welsh pony named Bug. Our dilemma, you may ask? No horse trailer, and four miles of snowy road in between the friends’ home and Sara’s house.

We bundled up quite well for our little escapade, decked out in thick coats, snow pants, hats, ear muffs, mittens, socks, everything made us look 20 pounds heavier. We started off at 10 AM down the long road ahead.

Our first part of the adventure was along a part of the road that had little to no tree coverage, so for little under a quarter of a mile we dealt with high winds and snow whipping on our face. Finally, we came to a long stretch of nicely covered road. The snow gently came down in big puffs, and after about an hour, we decided to stop in a driveway and take a short break. After about 5 minutes, we started off again. I figured before my hands completely froze off, I would take some quick shots while walking down the road. This is much harder than you would think…

Left: “Lady” looking out across a small, frozen pond. Right: Sara walking “Bug.”

Well, needless to say, there wasn’t much traffic, but the traffic that did go by, for the most part slowed down to a crawl as it went by. None of this phased Lady or Bug in the slightest, they took it all in stride. As for the small portion that DIDN’T slow down one bit, they would speed past us leaving us in a cloud of snow. The roads were slick, but we found safety on the shoulder of the road where there was just snow and dirt.

We finished the trip in about 2 hours, put the horses in their own stalls with luke warm water, hay, and warm beet pulp mixed with a small scoop of oats. They both took big drinks of the water and contentedly finished their beet pulp and munched on their hay. They were happy and so were we, so we headed inside for some rest, relaxation, and hot chocolate!!!

What makes me forever have a soft spot for this Morab was the fact that she never spooked, and she let me catch myself on her when I almost slipped and fell…repeatedly. Whenever the pony would be unsure of something, Lady would walk right past like an old pro, not even batting an eyelash. She was so reliable and friendly.

I guess there is a little room in my heart for a certain 9 year old Morab mare, a cute bay barely over 14 hands, named Lady.