5 Flicka
Flicka thought she was people. She was a person like you and me.” The people who raised her treated her that way. As a colt she would go into the house and eat people food. She thought the children were her peers and as she grew her physical dominance manifested as a spoiled brat. She became temperamental and actually bullied the children. She must have thought she was something regal and we should have named her Pegasus!
I was with Dad one day in 1951 when we dropped by the small farm on the edge of Berthoud, Colorado to collect for the hay we had been providing all winter. Instead, the man offered Flicka in lieu of the $25 payment! The responsibility and expense for Flicka had become a liability and it was time for them to part.
“Dad, did we just buy a horse?” The excited 7-year old me just had to know.
“Yes I did.”
“That will give us two horses, then! When will you bring her home? Can I ride her?”
“No, you can’t ride her yet, she’s ‘not broke.’ She’s actually a colt and we must wait until she is ready. We can start halter-breaking her now and get her used to having a saddle on her back. In a few months when she becomes a two-year-old, we will begin teaching her to ride.”
The next Monday when the school bus dropped me off at home, the corral had a new tenant. The reddish colored, sorrel Flicka was in the corral with gray Tuffy. (A few years earlier a Wyoming Rancher had given Tuffy to us when he began to slow down and could not continue separating the calves from their mothers. He was very safe as a kid horse.)
Tuffy was a good horse for learning to ride. My sisters and I sitting in the saddle. Photo by Jean H. Bein 1949
There was an uneasy stand off as the two horses struggled to decide a pecking order. There were a few well-placed kicks and some sharp bites. The old, retired cutting horse had little time for foolishness and soon took command. “Such an indignity! That old horse just pushes me around.” Flicka learned quickly whom she had to respect.
Flicka on the right and Tuffy on the left. Photo by Rick Bein 1953
As I walked up to the corral, Flicka ran over to me. “Here is one of those nice people that treat me right and let me do what I want to do.” I left her and went off to change clothes to begin my chores. Stepping back out of the house, Flicka whinnied at me across the farmyard. “She is really friendly,” I thought. “I never knew a horse to be so happy to see me.” I began to love her.
As we got to know Flicka, we learned that she loved human attention and she would eat anything that we ate, except for meat and apples. Meat was understandable. But, apples! Well, we learned in time that if we peeled them first she would enjoy them very much.
Once when one of my school friends came out to the farm, we went out to see the horses. We went into the corral and started stroking her when my mother came out and brought us each an ice cream cone. As we began enjoying this treat, Flicka, feeling left out, walked up to Danny Schreiner and