Practicing Self Control…or Not!

Have I mentioned how little I think of the way I used to “break” horses?  This is a story of a past sin, when I used to lose my temper and how I used to break ‘em.

When Felicia and I first got married we bought a stallion from her cousin.  He was out of a horse called Barbazon Yogi, I think he was a race horse down in Louisiana.  I don’t recall what his registered name was, but he had some really long hair (he looked woolly) and Felicia said he looked like a teddy bear.  So the name stuck, we called him Teddy. 

Now from all I understood at the time, he pretty much had freedom to breed who he wanted and when he wanted.  Felicia’s Granddad used to hold the mares he wanted bred and just let Teddy do his thing.  You could imagine what this created.

When we got him, the first thing we did was get him gelded.  Now it was later in life for ol’ Teddy, I think he was seven when we did it.  So of course, being seven and breeding like he did….he was reallllly studddy!  He would squall at any other horses!  Any time he saw one, he thought it was time for him to do his thing!

I rode him a lot, I’m talking 2-3 hours per day and 5-6 days per week (heck he was the only one I had at the time)!  I thought I was working that studdiness out of him, but all I was really doing was making him tough.  There probably wasn’t an ounce of fat on him; he was muscled up like a rock!  But, man, all that squalling really pissed me off!

So, one day, I decided enough was enough!  I picked up a board about 3 feet long (don’t judge, I was pretty young and stupid!) and rode Teddy over by the neighbor’ mares.  As soon as he started the squalling, I went to pounding on him.  We probably did this for about an hour, him squalling and me pounding.  Anytime he stopped squalling, I stopped pounding.  (Huh, look the dumb rider was practicing a really heavy handed version of releasing to pressure.)  We finally got to the end of my “training” session and I cooled him out and put him away.  Looking back, someone should have been beating me with the board!

We sold Teddy to a guy that started team penning on him and just loved him.  Said the only thing he had a problem with was he was always really high!  I asked him what he was feeding and he said that he was giving him two big scoops of 18% protein feed and a quarter bale of alfalfa twice a day!  Ol’ Teddy must have felt like his skin was crawling on him with that hot of feed!  Once he backed off the feed a little, he had no other problems.  Well, except for the time he took him on one of the trail rides into the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo.  Said he was perfect most of the way, but he would not go past any mares!

Don’t really know whatever happened to Teddy, but I really regret the way that I treated him.  Teddy turned into a pretty good horse, sometimes in spite of me.  This was a time when my temper got the better of me, and I took it out on a defenseless animal. Haven’t had any issues with my temper in a long time, I like to credit that to my relationship with the Lord!  Tempers are a pretty selfish thing, you are only thinking about yourself and the Lord wants us to practice self control.  As you learn more, you do better!  

Galatians 5:22-24

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.