Willow Leaves August 30

4Hers Go To StateFair Thirty-seven kids, parents, and chaperones took the bus from the 4H park early Saturday morning a week ago to make the two hour trip to the Indiana State Fair. They spent the day eating, riding, playing, looking, and generally having fun. We’ve heard this experience from one of the intrepid revellers: Billy People’s (12) convinced his big sister Sally (20) who was home from college to be his chaperone to the State Fair. Sally remembered the fun of the Fair and wasn’t too hard to convince. What Sally didn’t know is that since she’s been away at college her brother has gone horse crazy. And one of his major missions at the fair was to see a Thoroughbred race horse like they run in the Kentucky Derby. Most everyone around here who has horses has Quarter Horses or Arabians. Surely at the State Fair there would be Thoroughbreds. Sally likes horses, so she agreed to go through the horse barns in search of a Thoroughbred. Being a little inexperienced, they didn’t know that all the races on the oval here are trotters and pacers, Standardbred every one. It seems that Sally and Billy went through 21 horse barns of Standardbred horses, two barns of Draft Horses, and one barn of ponies and didn’t see a single Thoroughbred. By the time they were done, there was barely enough time to get to Billy’s photography entry and find out he’d won a white ribbon merit award for his beginner black and white photos. Congratulations Billy, and we hope you get to see a Thoroughbred soon!

Brown’s Arabians

The queen of horse-crazy around here is Barbara Brown who owns Brown’s Arabians ant on Dry Well Road. Like most of the kids around here, she grew up wanting a pony and dreaming of being a cowgirl. Well, it happened that after the “bull incident” Barbara’s father decided maybe a pony wasn’t such a bad idea after all. After all, that stubborn little donkey she’d been riding over at Albert Bailey’s place was likely to get her killed.

What Harold wasn’t counting on was the fervor of Barbara’s commitment to horses. Or how much this fatherly indulgence was going to cost him in the long run.

The first summer Barbara had her pony, she registered as a contestant in 4-H horsemanship. She registered as a contestant in pole-racing, barrel-racing, and rescue. She registered in the halter class and the costume class. She even borrowed an old pony-cart from a classmate in North Manchester and entered in the driving class. If Harold or Naomi couldn’t find their daughter that summer, they knew that all they had to do was locate the pony and she would be there too.

And the pony wasn’t that hard to locate. It acted like nothing so much as a big dog. When Harold went out to do chores in the early morning, Blitz would be standing at the kitchen door waiting for a carrot. When Harold was trying to repair his old Oliver tractor, Blitz stood next to him leaning on him. At one point, Harold found the pony with his front hooves on the first step of a stepladder reaching for apples on the crab apple tree.

The only reason the pony wasn’t more of a nuisance was because most of the time he was with Barbara learning more new tricks. Harold once stopped his tractor while cultivating beaus and grabbed his camera with a telephoto lens to see his daughter sitting under a tree reading a book. The pony was lying on the ground beside her with his head in her lap.

As inseparable as they were and as well as they did at the County Fair, you would think that Barbara would have been happy. But Harold soon found that Blitz was just phase one of his daughter’s master plan.

The fair was no sooner over than Barbara took her father to the barn and began laying out what she needed done this winter. She would need to build a box stall and lay in a supply of hay and oats. She needed the stall done by December because the January horse auctions would be the best time to pick up a good deal on an animal that no one wanted to board over the winter. She would also need one end of the big barn for training and schooling her new horse, so could Harold please park the big equipment neatly at one end, and could her brother please move his old Packard to the abandoned chicken coop.

Harold had never been good at saying no to his daughter and little by little he acquiesced to her requests. By spring there were two horses and the pony living in the little barn as the Arabian mare they bought at auction came with foal at heel.

Then they began to see the sense in the way Barbara had trained the little pony. She used him as her training companion. By summer, she could send the pony into the pasture and have him herd the mare into the barn. In training sessions, Blitz would pace alongside the bigger horses obeying Barbara’s commands as they she spoke them. And he was a great calming influence on the high-spirited Arabians as they paced in their stalls.

Barbara made a good showing at the fair, joined a precision drill team, and by high school had a stable of four Arabians and one little pony. In ’74 she married Jay Metzger and began slowly converting his beef ranch into a stable. Jay had no better luck denying her anything than Harold did. And the Arabians are part of the pride of Willow Mills with their tails held high and their necks arched as Barbara’s horsemanship classes ride in the annual parades. She has a rack of ribbons and trophies from all over the country and is as likely to be behind the wheel of her truck and horse trailer as to be in the saddle. She’s made a good business of breeding the stock, boarding horses for other riders, and giving lessons.

And hanging over her desk in the office of the stable is a large framed photograph of a girl under a tree and a pony lying beside her with his head in her lap.