“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” – Mark Twain

This a true story however the names have been changed to protect the pranksters.  No humans were hurt and there was said that you could hear equine laughter throughout the barn.

One morning some years back, I arrived at ABC Stables where I had scheduled 4 complete sets of shoes.  I backed the trailer into the area set up for farriers and I began setting up to shoe horses.

The barn had hired a barn manager about 3 years before.  He was an old cowboy who had paid his dues.  Quite the jovial sort of fellar.  Everyone called him Bubba.  He really enjoyed a good chaw of tobacco and was an excellent horse handler.  He was there to hold the first horse I was shoeing that morning because sometimes he didn’t particularly like my cologne or something and would make my life as miserable as a horse possibly could.

Now we are down to the last character in the story.  He was kind of like Tiny Tim, Dirty Harry and Barney Fife all rolled into one.  We called him Jim Bob.  Now Jim Bob had just recently bought a 15.1 hand buckskin quarter horse.  Now it just so happened that he bought it off a fella by the name of John Boy.  Now John Boy was such a crook that he could make a used car salesman and a politician seem like outstanding citizens.

Now John Boy had told Jim Bob that the horse he sold him was 15 years old and only rode to bingo games by a little old lady from Pasadena.  Well Jim Bob had the vet out to float his horse’s teeth and he asked the vet how old he thought the horse was.  The vet without hesitation said 20 years old.  Now Jim Bob had a slight dilemma, how old is ole Dobbin?  This worked overtime on the mind of Jim Bob and the real problem was that Dobbin wasn’t registered so there was no record of his birth.  All this is what led to the happenings in the barn on this particular morning.

I was shoeing the horse who on that morning was giving me fits because all I had was regular ole shoes and no “Air Secretariats”.  Bubba was doing his best to make the ole horse stand still and it was about to get on our last nerve.  Then, along came Jim Bob crying like some 3 year old child who had their ice cream stolen right out of their hands.  Oh woe is me, I have a horse and I don’t know how old he is.

Well I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with him soooooooooooooo, DRUM ROLL, yep I said it, “Jim Bob there is one way to tell how old that horse is, count the anal rings and that will give you a real good idea how old he is.”  Well Bubba almost swallered his tobacco and he chimes in, “Damn I forgot all about that!”

Jim Bob is standing there looking at me with this goofy look on his face and says, “Please tell me, how does one determine the age of a horse by counting the anal rings?”  I said, well you know how a tree grows a ring for one year of age.  A horse grows an anal ring for every 5 years of age.  By now he is looking at me like I am crazier than a bedbug.  He then says I can’t even believe that I talk to you two at which time Bubba and I blurt out at the same time, but it is the truth.  He turns and walks away cussing us the whole time.

I was just getting ready to nail a shoe on the second horse I had to do when Bubba starts saying, lookie there, quick look.  So I put the horse’s foot down and look down the shed row and………..yep, there was Jim Bob holding the horse’s tail up with one hand and running his finger around the rectum of Dobbin looking for anal rings.

Needless to say Bubba and I begin laughing so hard that Bubba almost swallered his tobacco again.  I had tears running down my cheeks I was laughing so hard.  Then…yep Jim Bob caught us laughing and was madder than a wet hen.  He cussed us up one side and down the other.  He didn’t talk to me for three months.

I hope you enjoyed my story.  Thanks for reading and remember to spread the love.