Sneaky Pie's Cookbook For Mystery Lovers

Horse

MOLASSES MASH

¼ cup dry molasses

¾ bucket beet pulp

Warm water

Mix the dry molasses through the beet pulp, then add warm water almost to the top of the pail. Allow to sit overnight.

When you come into the barn in the morning, reach down in the pail with your hands and turn the mixture over again.

For a 16-hand horse, add ½ cup of the molasses mash to his or her regular feed.

SOME PEOPLE FEED their horses beet pulp daily and no sweet feed. We use it as a treat since most horses enjoy the molasses taste.

Mom’s grandfather used to make a bran mash: ¾ bucket high-quality bran, ½ cup dry molasses, warm water, and 1 ounce brandy.

If a horse is stall bound, the last thing you want to do is fill them up on bran. He used the mash as a reward, feeding it once a week out in the pasture.

Horses’ digestive systems are very different from cats’. The best thing in the world to feed a horse and keep it from colic is good-quality hay and lots of water. If you live in an area where the grass has plenty of nutrients, like Kentucky, with all that limestone in the soil, that’s the best of the best. Of course, turn a horse out on new spring grass and they’ll eat themselves sick. Remember what I said about horses being stupid …

Horses are grazers. Their ideal situation is to eat and walk, eat and walk. My ideal situation is to eat in one spot.

Pewter likes to sit on the fence post and call the horses to her. One day she was sunning herself on the fence, eyes closed, dozing, when one of the babies, Sidekick, snuck up. He tiptoed almost like a cat, got right behind her, then blew air out of his nostrils. Pewter shot three feet straight up in the air. Scared the horse as much as he’d scared her.

She raced to the house and he ran down and jumped into the pond.

He’s not a baby now, he’s 16.3 hands, half Thoroughbred and half Dutch Warmblood. His sense of humor has grown with his size. He likes to steal hats off humans’ heads. He pulls bridles off bridle hooks, carries them to the other end of the stable, drops them, and returns for another one. He knows how to open doors, too. Last summer he jumped out of his three-board fence pasture—he can “jump the moon” effortlessly—walked up to the back of the house, stepped over the stone wall, continued across the patio, and opened the back door. The wood floor baffled him, though. He’d start to come into the kitchen, then back off.

Tucker ran for Mother, who almost fainted when she saw Sidekick. She had visions of those steel shoes on her maple floors. She didn’t yell at him but he knew he’d been a bad boy so he turned around, stepped back over the stone wall, trotted across the lawn, and flew over the stone jump at the end of the lawn. He hung out at the old Indian spring all day, hoping we’d forget his misdeed.

I love horses because they have such a wonderful sense of humor.