90 SIDELINES FEBRUARY 2013
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
Sidelines Magazine Publisher
Samantha Charles and Katchina.
Samantha and Katchina
playing polo.
By Samantha Charles
Editor’s Note: Sidelines Magazine Publisher Samantha Charles
has always had an affnity for paints and Katchina was a special
paint mare that came into her life – and left wonderful hoof prints
on her heart. It is with great sadness that we report the news that
Katchina recently passed away. Samantha shares Katchina’s
story in this tribute to her favorite pony.
My “favorite pony” is an appropriate name; Katchina was one
of my most talented and loving polo ponies. Like all good horse
owners, I fall in love with them all and every one is a special gift in
my life. I can say that Katchina, however, taught me more about
understanding a horse than any. She stopped me in my tracks
and said, “OK, you have to understand what ‘I’ am telling you not
what ‘you’ are telling me.”
There was a little help from Quawni Pony Boy, of course. I
bought Katchina 14 years ago from one of my favorite polo pony
horse traders, BJ Buck, a long time best girlfriend and fellow
polo player. I got BJ started in polo in Vermont and we remained
lifelong friends.
BJ understood my weakness for paints so every time she had
one to sell she didn’t have to give me a sales pitch, she would just
drive onto my farm with the horse loaded on the trailer. She was
cagy enough to get me to “ask” if I could please buy that paint.
Katchina was one such beautiful 3-year-old flly.
With only two weeks of training under her belt, she was a
scared, hot little pistol but real cute! There were many times I had
to jump off her back and walk her back home (well, I walked and
she did, too; but we were both walking on hind feet only). She was
also the frst polo mare I ever owned who was at the very bottom
of the pecking order in the pasture, afraid of everything.
Within the frst month that I bought her, I went to Equitana and
while there happened on a lecture by a guy dressed up in full
Indian regalia. At frst I thought he was a joke; but soon realized
that the hall he had reserved for his lecture was sold out and
moved to a larger room. I sat in. His talk was about “relationship
training.” He told a story that I feel sums it all up.
As a young Cherokee horseman, he used the council of his
Katchina in New Mexico.
Katchina fying free
on earth – and now
in heaven.
My Favorite Pony
Katchina: Spring, 1995 - Christmas, 2012
elders to help him understand horse training. He had one horse
who he just couldn’t seem to do anything with. So his elder sat
quietly asking some poignant questions. What does your horse
like to eat in the pasture? Where does he like to stand at night?
Who are his friends in the herd? Does he stand, lie down, etc.?
Quawnee admitted he didn’t know the answer to any of these
questions, so his elder told him – “Go quietly and lie in the pasture
and get to know your horse. When you understand him, you will
be able to train him.”
After the talk I bought his book and stood in line for an
autograph. When I got there, I asked him about my new mare.
Could she ever be brave enough to play polo? I had never had a
mare that wasn’t an alpha in the herd and I was afraid she would
never be brave enough. Take her away from the herd, he said.
Spend time with just her, become her alpha and then she will love
and protect you for life.
That is what we did and over the next 14 years she continued
to teach me. When I fnally understood to stop and listen to what
she was telling me, she told me plenty. Her love was huge and
her vulnerability humbling! She was brave on the polo feld and
a handful in the hunt feld – and she took me everywhere, from
our home in Florida to New Mexico, to Bellingham, Washington,
from polo to hunting to trail riding. Never did I walk up to her in the
pasture that she didn’t speak to me.
Katchina was a beautiful and talented polo mare and played
her last chukkar this summer in Sheridan, Wyoming under a
friend, Kris Bowman, who shared my love for her. In Katchina’s
last chukkar of polo, she took Kris from coast to coast to score a
spectacular goal; at 17 she could still do it all.
Katchina was brave to the end. She fought to survive, leaning
her head in my arms in pain, but alas she just couldn’t survive
colic and I had to let her go. As I sit here remembering, there
is so very much more. I feel I owe her a tribute for being such
a good teacher and such a loyal friend. Sad as it is, I am glad
she is buried in my pasture, with her good friend India, my other
fabulous paint polo mare. Ironically a polo pony I bought from Kris
Bowman. I feel their souls fying off to heaven to be with my polo
friend BJ who awaits there on greener pastures.
“Some horses come into our lives and
quickly go; others stay a while and
make hoof prints on our hearts that will
never fade.”