A Lifetime of Being a Good Horse
- August 20, 2025
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life, Uncategorized
The realization that I’ve aged out on most of the work I used to do is bad enough, but watching the good horses I used to do it on is harder in a way. Seeing their once strong bodies get stiff, lame at times, and with more defined bone structure is difficult. My favorites have been promoted to kid horses, and are doing an excellent job at it, but it troubles me that it won’t be for much longer. Time is catching up, even
with the easier jobs they’re given.
One of these great horses is a home raised gelding that belongs to my son. Lakota is a son of the mare
that raised Colin, and her mother was the horse that raised me, and going back even further, her sire was my Grandad’s top horse. The bond between Colin and Lakota was preordained due to his love of the old mare that gave birth to Lakota. Colin was 10 when Lakota was born. Lakota napped his first morning with his head on Colin’s lap. He turned 24 this past June. Colin will be 35 this fall.
He started him lightly as a yearling at a clinic and then was turned out until he was three to finish growing up. On his eighth ride as a three-year-old, Colin dragged calves at a branding with him. They
never found a job they couldn’t do together in the ensuing years. Ranch work was a steady diet and
Lakota was a pleasure to cover country on as he could walk really fast, had a long strided lope and a never quit attitude. Not hot, but one never had to peddle him a step.
I don’t know how many thousand calves were dragged at brandings, plus big yearling steers roped and branded. He snubbed colts, could run down a runaway horse with ease, and was very cowy in a sorting pen. If Colin needed to do a job, it wasn’t ever necessary to get a different horse as Lakota was right for the task.
He was a solid heading horse in the arena though he wasn’t ever officially trained in it but was so broke he just did his job. He also picked up broncs and shagged bulls, being fearless when asked to move in on a big bucking horse, and stout on the horn when a bull needed dragged from the arena.
He was light and feely and had a vivid imagination, as did his mama, and sometimes saw trolls to gawk at, but he kept life interesting that way. Never broncy, but loping high might happen when he was fresh and silly. Once the real job started though, all the nonsense ended and he was all business.
As he got older, Colin took him along to different places he lived. When at a job far from home Lakota’s health faltered. No amount of feed, supplements or deworming changed the fact that Lakota was failing. He moved him to a friend’s place for some R and R, knowing the friend would give him good feed and room to roam, while Colin headed to a different job, hating to leave him but hoping for the best.
In a few weeks, the friend called Colin and said he was afraid Lakota was going to die on his watch and
wanted him to take him home. It was 750 miles for Colin to go get him so he called me and I headed out
early the next morning and drove 250 miles to bring him home.
He looked terrible. Skeletal with so much edema in his limbs that his legs couldn’t bend properly. He’d been unable to lay down for deep rest due to that, so he was exhausted. I haltered him with my heart
heavy, sure that this beloved horse wasn’t going to be able to survive the trip home. We moved so slowly to the trailer taking steps in inches, that I even doubted he could get in it, though I’d parked in a swale to make the step up lower. When he saw the trailer from home, though, he perked up and tried to hurry to it and after resting a bit, struggled in, determined to go home. Once in, I loved on him a bit feeling like it might be my last time. I pulled off the halter and closed the trailer. Without delay, I headed for home.
As I crept along, trying to make the ride as easy as possible, I never felt him move. You know, the shifting of the trailer was absent. I stopped to fuel up and checked on him, having felt and heard nothing
since loading him. He was standing with his feet braced wide and his head hanging. It didn’t look good
but looked better than dead on the floor, which I’d feared.
When I got him home, he was still in that position, but after resting from the motion of the trailer, I unloaded him in the corral where he was to be kept. His home corral. The one he’d entered from the barn the day after he was born. He seemed relieved to be there, as he relaxed the tension in his face. He was home.
A few days later he was loaded again and taken to our wonderful horse vet we had been talking with
about him. He determined that he had extreme ulcers and blood worms. Treatment protocol was mapped out but the hope that we’d save him was slim.
The process was long and tedious, with treatment having to be tempered for his fragile condition, but
he kept eating and drinking, so he was trying to live and we were sure trying to save him. Slowly, the
edema went down and his legs were slimmer but looked terrible as all the skin peeled off from the
swelling. It took over a month for his physical shape to start improving, but every pound was a victory.
We finished the treatments and we were given the go-ahead by the vet to put him out on grass and monitor him closely. He needn’t have said that as we hardly took our eyes off of him while he grazed the
lush green grass in the back yard, easily seen from the windows.
His condition improved so fast it was just amazing to watch. I hadn’t taken any pictures of his worst time or his progress, as I didn’t want the reminders, I guess. But I wish I had. At the end of two months, he looked like Lakota again with new hair grown on his legs and the shine back on his sorrel hide. His eyes were bright and he was himself at last. Colin was finally able to make it home to see for himself and was so tickled that he saddled him up and they took a little ride together. It was good for both of them and
darned sure good for me.
That spell was the only time in Lakota’s life that he couldn’t report for duty. He went back to work and hasn’t missed a lick since. I rode him a bunch after my good horse was needed for my little grandson.
Lakota was so fun to ride. He moved like a dream and I never doubted he would do anything I needed to
do. He was reliable and safe as my back got worse and would stand like a statue while I wallered on and
off. I always knew he’d take care of me.
When Colin met his cowboy lady who became his wife, he had her ride Lakota when she’d come to help him on the ranch he was running, and she fell for him too. I’ve teased him that she might have married him for his horse. They were a good team and she enjoyed riding him.
Last year the second oldest boy, 12, was paired with the aging Lakota and he fell for him too. He’d never ridden one with quite that much feel and a walk that fast. They were a good match, for sure.
This year the shift was made again when the 8-year old’s old horse, my Rush, started having trouble with his knees and was promoted to the toddler’s saddle horse. So, the youngest boy needed a horse and he was paired with Lakota, and it worked, though I had my doubts, like Grandmas do. Lakota has figured out that the smaller the rider the less he’s expected to do and the wise old boy is taking care of the kids well.
This year’s branding back in June had Lakota in the lineup with second oldest, now 13, riding him to gather cows and sort. The string of horses able to be used that day was pretty short with an injury in
one and all of them horseback, so there were no spares. When the branding commenced, Colin used a
younger horse for about half of the calves, but that horse was sore footed and getting sorer, so he had to quit her. Lakota was tied to the fence and he got the nod. Stirrups adjusted, Colin stepped on his old top horse, and the branding continued. He used him as gently as he could and Lakota handled it all well and seemed to enjoy himself too. He’s a master in the branding pen and never made an error.
When the last calf was done, Colin stepped off and loosened his cinch, then stood with his old pard and rubbed his face. His A-team horse is old and there’s never going to be another like him. I doubt Colin will ever ride him again, as he’s a big man and Lakota has some stiff spots from the hard riding and dragging big cattle. But they had one more cowboy day together, and that is priceless. A long history of a boy’s love for a colt and a man’s love and respect for the horse he became.
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About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....