Once upon a time my neighbor, of Czech descent, and a rancher, called me on the telephone to offer a horse. Like I needed another one! It turns out he’d been given a cutting horse as gift, but since he didn’t ride he didn’t know what to do with it. He worked his cows with a sack of range cubes. I must have said yes, for in the dark that night his stock trailer with lights blazing rattled into my yard, and he deposited a sorrel gelding in my corral.
The next morning I walked out with my cup of coffee to see the plainest little quarter horse imaginable. He didn’t have a speck of white, his mane was short and thin, and he was munching hay like he didn’t have a care in the world. Well, I saddled him up and tested him in the round pen, and to my delight he was nicely broke to ride! So I trotted out to the corral where I had a few cows and calves penned to see if he’d “look at the cow.” I walked him into the herd and out cut out a dry heifer and dropped The reins on his neck. His ears pinned to the his neck so he looked like a snake, he dropped down in front, and mirrored every move of the heifer. It was as if they were connected by a wire. I was startled, and almost fell off, mostly from giggling. When I recovered my composure, I rubbed his neck and told him “my friend, we’re going to get along fine, and I’m going to give you special name, since you sure had that heifer in your sights I’m going to call you “radar!”