Little Arab With a Big Heart

by Yvonne McGregor

The picture is my little arab gelding GreyBoy. He was born in 1993. I bought him when he was 6 years old. I never owned a horse before and I bought three horses on the same day.

I bought my Mustang Bailey early one morning and went looking for another horse for my husband. I saw an add in the paper and went to look at my next purchase.

The gentlemen was selling two Arabs, half brothers that had never been apart. He made me a deal, 'if you buy both of these guys I will sell them to you for $1,000.00.

They are both registered Arabs well Greyboy is registered half Arab.

WOW! What did I know. They were not quite what I was looking for, me being new to horses I knew better than to buy a green broke horse. But who could pass up a deal like this.

I figured I would buy them and then sell them and buy another horse with the money that I would make. Well my heart string got pulled the minute we were loading them up in the trailer.

I had a professional horse transporter come to get them. We led GreyBoy and his brother Captain to the trailer. Neither one wanted to get in. Kelly (the professional) was gently tapping Captain on the hind end with her whip, all the while GreyBoy was trying to lip the end of the whip that Kelly held in her hand. She decided she would let him take the whip in his mouth; which he did and proceeded to tap Captain on the rear end. Kelly and I laughed so hard.

Captain loaded up and of course Greyboy followed right in. Kelly said she never seen anything that cracked her up so much as that. What a character.

We got them home and put them in the corral. From then on, my husband and I saw what characters both of these curious beast were. They were Dennis the menace.

Greyboy would pick up sticks and use them to scratch Bailey on the back and Bailey would love it. He would use pieces of the garden hose that we gave him to play with as a tool.

He would go off into the pasture by himself and practice swinging his head with the hose in his mouth. The reason he needed practice; when he would swing the hose it would whack him in the head, so he kept on practicing, maybe 15 - 20 minutes and then he would get it to swing without smacking himself. Woo Hoo! you could see him thinking, now with hose in his mouth and a way to swing it without hitting himself he would chase the other two horses around the coral. He got a big kick out of this playtime.

GreyBoy is #3 in a herd of three and this was the only way he could make himself #1. He would turn the faucet on and get the end of the hose and squirt the other two. He had a ball and so did we.

My husband was sitting on GreyBoy's back when a Bicyclist went by and GreyBoy jumped forward, while my husband didn't. LOL.

Well, that sent us to Rapid Care since my husband had bruised his back in the fall.

While I was in the waiting room I noticed a women and her husband sitting across from me. The woman asked me 'what happened to your husband', I informed her that he had fallen from a horse. So we were chit chatting about horses. The woman's name was leslie and I was thrilled to talk horse stories with her. She was sharing some great stories about a horse she use to own and what wonderful things he did. I was sharing horse stories about GB.

Finally I mentioned my horses name, I said 'Greyboy' is a character. Leslie exclaimed! Greyboy, is that his registered name? I informed her that it was. She smiled and was thrilled that she had found out where GreyBoy was. See; she was telling me stories about GreyBoy and I was telling her stories about Greyboy. Greyboy happened to be her mares son. She had bred her mare and sold the colt to one of her friends. Leslie had the pleasure of owning Greyboy until he was six months old, when he went to his new home.

The story gets better. Leslie asked if she could come see him, and of course I said she could. I live in a remote area, and come to find out, Leslie also lived in the same area. She was just three miles from me. Leslie has been a horse whisperer (in the true sense, she really hears what horses have to say) and she was willing to help me train my boy. In fact she was so thrilled with the idea.

So Leslie and I have been together since I bought my Arabs in 1999. She helped me with everything. We had so much fun and I learned so much. I moved to Missouri September 2006 and we keep in touch with Leslie through our phone conversations. She keeps tabs on her little Arab Greyboy.