Lise A has been grooming Lacey for the past little while, and has the following to say about this special mare:
“One of the baby name meanings of “Lacey” is cheerful. And a descriptor used in a dictionary definition of “Lacey” is a web.
I was offered the opportunity to pick one of a few SAFE horses to groom who aren’t for beginners due to their quirky attitudes.
I mused and decided that I would give the girl, named for being cheerful, a go.
It’s been a few months now, and I have been grooming Lacey a few times a week. Cheerful would not be the first word that comes to mind when I think of her.
More accurately (to me) is that she is a web of opinions with intricate and at times bold indicators of her mood.
To put it bluntly, I may not totally trust her, but she cracks me up every time I see her.
I typically find her standing in the corner in order to be close to her buddy Domino. (And a note to the facilities team — she is currently less than impressed that someone had the nerve to block that area off with electric fence, even if it is a mud pit that needs to be rehabbed). I want to let you know when I last groomed her- I think I saw a thought bubble that said “No bueno”… which is much nicer than what I’m sure she was really thinking.
Anyway- here is how grooming usually goes.
I whistle and call her name as I head to her paddock. She barely gives me an ear twitch or an eyeball. But wait, did I hear a nicker? ( oh heck — NO YOU DID NOT …. says she!)
I grab the halter and head to her corner (well, not corner now) and thankfully, she is standing with her left side to me.
I give her withers a little rub and move to put on the halter as she pins her ears and then very demurely drops her nose right in. With a float in the rope, I step away and with barely a lift of my hand she gently turns to follow me so I can get closer to the brush box. As I begin to groom her, she clearly makes a decision to give herself over to the indecency of having public spa time in front of her main squeeze Domino and the 3 silly girls in the other paddock.
Her nose wiggles, her neck goes up and her eyeballs roll back in her head as I curry her shoulder. If I have the nerve to stop working on that area, she will step forward or backwards in order to make sure I get back to the whole point of my being there.
Once I move to brushing, she is typically less interested and expresses a web of intricate ear and nose opinions, but will stand and humor me.
Picking her front feet is becoming hilarious to me. She knows exactly what I want and I think she hopes I will be a weenie and give up on her. She will try to turn her head and have a conversation with her mouth on my back side, or she plants her feet and waits to see if I will keel over from standing head first with sweat pouring off my face in the late afternoon heat. But I think she now realizes that I too have a web of opinions and am not always cheerful and don’t like spa time in public and know what I like, and, to her chagrin… knows I won’t give up on her.
As she has come to this brilliant conclusion and now knows she is stuck with me, we have more conversations ( well I think we do).
She is a good egg wrapped in a beautiful sorrel coat with a balayage mane (her own doing).
She has a webbed attitude on the surface that looks dubious, but a heart of gold that is waiting for someone to come along and not take her so seriously and love her in spite of the fact that she doesn’t quite know how to rearrange her face to look cheerful.”
