Thinking about Kat aka Lil' Cuatra Susies black mare....

Last post I mentioned that our 21 year old mare, Kat, was having a little trouble with her foot, well it turned out to be actually a little trouble.  Kat has improved nicely.

In giving her twice a day epson salt soakings, I spent a fair amount of time on my knees, in the cold, in front of her "soaking" foot.  Trust me if a horse doesn't want to have its foot soaked there's no way your going to soak it.

In any case while I was on my knees I had some time to reflect on Kat and what she's brought to my life... She's 21 years old which isn't particularly old for a quarter horse, her sire "Peppy San Badger" aka Little Peppy, lived to 29 years. Little Peppy was one of the greatest cutting performance horses and sire of cutting horses. King Ranch

Kat was bred and born on the largest ranch in the US, the King Ranch headquartered in Texas.  We are especially honored to have Kat and another little peppy mare we lived with, PorkChop, who died shortly after we purchased her a month after giving birth to our "orphan" mare Pepsi.

Horses sired by little peppy are extremely rare and hard to find.  I've only seen one other besides Kat and PorkChop.

Unfortunately when Kat was younger, actually before she came to live with us, she broke a carpal bone in her left front leg.  As far as we can tell she never showed any symptoms but when we had her checked for insurance purposes one could easily see the healed bone in the x-ray. The vet said that eventually she would develop arthritis in the joint. She did and subsequently is very crippled on that leg.  Monthly deterioration is fairly obvious. At some time in the future (could be tomorrow or a year from tomorrow) the leg will not be able to support her and she will die, probably euthenized.

I could not in a single sitting, perhaps in hundreds of sittings, tell you all of the memories Kat has given me.

I remember when we first saw her, a year before she came to live with us. Robert, the "horse trainer" and I flew to Sacramento CA., drove to Napa Valley to have a look at a Little Peppy mare that was for sale. This horse which we bought on the spot was PorkChop. There was another horse in the pasture with a horse sheet on, all you could see were her black head and legs.  I never figured out how he knew but Robert walked up to her and picked up the sheet to reveal the horses hip and thigh.  I just remember him shacking his head and saying "I can't believe it".  I finally got out of him the the black mare was marked with the King Ranch brand (the running W, looks like a series of waves all points rounded off). Also she had the sire brand of P-Bar on her left hind-end (P-bar is he sire brand for Little Peppy).

As it goes we talked about and discussed how awesome it would be to have a Little Peppy mare, born and bred on the King Ranch.  As I said I paid for PorkChop, who was a wonderful horse in her own right but she died of  "colic" (a generic term for belly ache in this case a twisted intestine). She died one month after giving birth the Pepsi, another very sweet mare. 

I called Arlyta Brown, the woman that sold us PorkChop, and told her that PorkChop had died...

A few weeks later Arlyta called me back and asked me if I would be interested in buying the Other (Kat) Little Peppy mare she had, for what was a lot of money to me, but a real bargain. She offered her to no one else.

Back to Napa Valley, this time Susie went with us, we stayed at Arlytas house and went with her the next day to watch her cut on Kat... Wow I knew I had to have her so I could learn to cut. 

The first time the cow went left, she went left and I stayed on the right, needless to say I hit the ground and boy did it hurt. So now we own a broke,trained (by Buster Welch) cutter. Buster Welch

While Kat was very athletic and tough in front of a cow, she was the "go to" horse when friends and family wanted to go riding.

In any case over the next several days, for who knows what reason, Susie started riding her and never again was she "MY" horse, she belonged to Susie and CLEARLY preferred Susie to me, she was Susies mare who I occasionally rode. Kat was very good with novice riders and with Susan. Kat took very good care of Susan I can't recall them ever having any scary issues together.

One thing that Susie and I have come to realize is that the horses are our pets first, regardless of what the trainer or anyone says...

Enough blabbin for now. I'll revisit some of the other memories in the future....

Kat and her son Little Chic