11/08/07 Roman and Scotty

Buying young horses does not always produce the expected results. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back right after this to explain. Many years ago, while I was home on a break from college, one of the neighbors told me about a couple of yearling colts he wanted to sell. Well, to make a short story short I bought the young gelding and filly since the price was right and I knew a little about the sire and their dams. I trimmed their feet and turned them out in the bunch grass for a while. Roman, the gelding was brought in to train first. After some groundwork his first job was packing salt. Everything went fine until Roman decided he wasn't going through the first gate. He reared up and got overbalanced by the pack so I let his lead rope go from the saddle horn and let him fall. I was satisfied that would teach him a quick lesson and he did do better the rest of the day. The next time I saddled him and was working him with driving reins he got mad over nothing and did his little circus act again. He not only stood on his hind legs  he vaulted backwards and landed on the saddle. Dad happened to be watching and his first comment was sell him, that was no accident he knew what he wanted to do and did it. I always figured you should respect your Dad's advice  besides I didn't like the picture in my mind of being one of Roman's patented pancakes. I really wasn't looking forward to working with the filly, but even though Scotty was a wildcat for a while she became one of our most trusted horses and raised four good colts. You just never know. I'm Jeff Keane.