And You Think I Need Glasses?

By Nina Catanzarite

This article received an honorable mention in the 2024 GMO Newsletter Awards for first person experience articles for GMOs with 75-174 members. It appeared in the February 2024 Three Rivers Equestrian Association newsletter, TREA Branches.

Cookie Cutter was getting up in age, I think she was somewhere between being able to vote but not old enough to drink. She was an Appaloosa cross that I had a blast with competing in lower level dressage and eventing before she retired. She spent her retirement years on our farm with our paint Splash and our black gelding Starz who ironically had no white markings at all.

Late one night when I crawled into bed, I heard her whinny from my opened bedroom window. I thought to my-self, that was strange, horses don’t normally whinny for no reason, not like they do in the movies. If she whinnies again, I will drag myself outside and investigate. So again, I heard her whinny. I went outside and found her in the pasture. She was looking intently into the darkness and whinnying like she had lost a buddy. I was so up-set. For years I had suspected she had vision problems. She would mistake puddles on cement for holes in the ground, she would tilt her head to focus in on objects. Once during a cross country jumping clinic with a clinician from England, Cookie jumped into a water jump getting her face and nose extremely close to the water before jumping in. The clinician shouted, in a wonderful English accent, “That horse needs spectacles!“. And here she was, years later in the darkness, unable to find her pasture mates. I stroked her neck and reassured her. “Cookie I am here, you are alright, everything is gonna be alright. Tomorrow I will put a bell on Splash and Starz so you can hear them in the darkness.” Then I looked around to find Splash, our paint, standing not too far behind us. “See Cookie, Splash is right behind us and I am sure Starz is close by too”. I looked around for Starz, our black gelding, assuring Cookie that he had to be close. But Cookie continued to intently call out into the darkness in the same direction. She continued to stand in the same position, in the same direction and intently stare off in the direction of our garden which was on the other side of the fence. I continue to try and reassure her, “Cookie it will be alright, I am sure Starz is here somewhere”. Then I began to wonder myself, where is that darn black horse and why isn’t he coming up to comfort my poor near sighted old mare?

Then my eye began to finally focus in the dark and I saw Starz. He was standing on the wrong side of the fence, outside of the pasture, in our garden, right where Cookie was pointing. If that mare spoke English, it would have come out something like this, “Hey Nina! jhnGet out of bed and get over here! You need to take care of this situ-ation! Starz is out of the pasture and he is in the garden! I said he is in the garden! For heaven’s sake woman! He is right there where I have been pointing and whinnying! And you think I am the one who needs glasses!!”