Flying Jazz (horse stories)
Breakfast time is a busy time for me. There are plenty of chores to do before the day begins. Lots of creatures want my attention.
Every morning the canine crew and I stroll down the hill from the house. Sometimes Mitzy (cat) joins us.
I look out over the distance. The sun is rising over the horizon. Up the back paddock the last of the kangaroos are finishing their meals before they head back into the bush for the day. There are a few Belted Galloway cattle lazing around. Some of them are grazing. Some of them are lying down, waiting for the warmth of the morning sun.
On our way down we are met by my group of horses. They are so used to our routine that they time my exit from the house almost perfectly every day. They are out the front waiting for me. We wander down as a loosely held together group.
The leader of the equine crew at breakfast time is Flying Jazz.
Flying Jazz or ‘Jazzy’ is an off-the-track racehorse that I bought off a friend about 10 years ago.
Flying Jazz
He only ever ran about four races. Once came fourth in a four horse race.
Flying Jazz chose not to run.
The owners sold him to someone who thought they would use him for polocrosse. Polocrosse is a game played on horseback at considerable speed using nets on the end of long poles and a ball that bounces. It’s like polo but with bouncing balls. It is a fantastic game to watch and if you ever get a chance to go to a championship league game you should go.
Flying Jazz chose not to play polocrosse.
He was sold again.
I don’t know how many times he was sold and moved along between the race track owner and my friend.
My friend would sometimes buy off-the-track race horses and ‘settle’ them: just put them in a paddock and leave them for a year or so. No running, no racing. Just learning how to move slowly again. He would teach them that it’s okay to just walk.
I was at a hiatus. My best horse at that time and my only riding horse, Sisteen, had contracted salmonella. After a lot of medical intervention which ultimately didn’t help she was euthanized.
I was devastated at her loss and I didn’t have a horse to ride. I had bought myself another beautiful colt but I would not be able to ride him for some years. And so Flying Jazz joined my crew.
He was great if one was just walking down a dirt road. He never took off. His desire to run just wasn’t there. But he was hopeless in the bush. If you took him off the track he would become highly anxious and start rushing through the bush knocking past trees and over logs. It wasn’t safe.
Sometimes his ‘thoroughbred’ head would kick in and he would do something wildly unpredictable. This worried me and I didn’t always enjoy the ride.
I rode him for a few years and I was grateful for his service. But I have now retired him to the paddocks.
Breakfast time
His main aim in life now to get his horse crunchies before anybody else and to generally ensure that there is order at feed time.
He is terribly smart. I have watched him trying to open gates using his mouth to lift chains and try to work them open. I have watched him strategize, trying to work around the roadblocks that I put in the place to stop him from getting at another horse’s food. He works it out every time. He will canter a couple of hundred metres up the paddock so that he can reach an open gate then come all the way back down on the other side.
The photo is Jazzy’s every morning standing position at the tack room at feed time. I’m inside mixing up the food. He watches and if I am too slow he starts throwing his head around.
A friend of mine once said to me why don’t you get rid of him? …he is of no use, you’ll never ride him again!
But I will never get rid of him.
No animal gets moved off my property. He’s not useless. He’s a lovely, funny, sweet boy and he deserves a good home.