Narromine

Narromine is a small town, about 30min out of Dubbo. I woke up at around 5AM to be ready for work at 6AM. We feed the horses twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon around 4PM. Lindsey keeps the horses at a racecourse about 5min drive from the house, along with a couple other horse trainers. It was basically a dirt ground. He showed me how to mix the feed, with different ratio of grains, wheat and such. Once we finish feeding we’d prep it for next feed. There were about 12 horses, plus a poney he had kept for Dakota. He was a mean ass horse. Lindsey put the new horse we got the day before with the poney and I often see it gets bullied, eventhough it’s twice the size of the poney. Lindsey would train the horses while I feed and water them. It took me a long time to get it done the first few days because I need to make sure the water doesn’t overflow and make the ground all muddy and wet because it’s bad for the horses’ feet. He said it gets easier once I get a system going. Eventually he showed me how to put the rugs on the horses, so I could do that once he finishes training a horse. I had to catch the horses so they don’t move around when I put the rugs on them. I was familiar with catching the horses from Leconfield, but these were race horses, so they were quite tall. Most of them were pretty tame, but there was one named Socks and he was especially tall with an attitude. Lindsey said that Socks knew he’s tall so everytime I go put the head collar on him he’d keep his head high so I couldn’t reach him. I was always quite scared of him at first. One time I already had the head collar on him and had him tied to the fence while I put the rug on him. He might have gotten spooked or something all of a sudden he pulled back, pulled the fence, and it hit me in the ribs and I fell over. I was hurting for weeks after.

There were also 3 kittens and 2 puppies that lived at the yard. Lindsey also has a dog name Spike. He looks like an old dog because of his fur but he’s not, and he likes to paw at people to get petted, but he doesn’t get along with other dogs and likes to bark at the horses. One of the puppies always likes to play with him but he always growls at him. I’ve gotten better after the first week and finished quite fast, so Lindsey got me to clean his trailer where he kept all the winter rugs and reigns and clean around the yard when I’m not busy. Then he also got me to start shoveling shit around the yard. The other puppy usually just sleeps around while I clean out the trailer. That one eventually died for some reason. We came in one day and it was just lying there pretty much lifeless, and Lindsey just chucked it somewhere I don’t wanna know.

Because it was working for accommodation so I wasn’t getting paid, but since I only work a few hours in the the morning and a few hours in the afternoon I thought I could get a job in town working at a hotel or something at night to make a few extra bucks. It was about a 15min walk into town. There a few hotels and a couple Chinese restaurants. I went into a kobab shop and a Chinese restaurant. The Chinese restaurant told me to go in for a trial the same night. The kobab shop told me to go back in another day for a “talk,” and he told me to go in the week after for a trial as well. The Chinese restaurant just kinda started giving me more and more shifts, there’s a whole other story with the Chinese restaurant. The kobab place didn’t work out. At the trial the owner basically just told me to sweep the back room, and wipe down all the cupboards. He told me he’d give me a call in a couple days but he didn’t till a week later and I didn’t wanna work for him anymore.

I got to meet the saddle maker in town with Lindsey. He’s a really old dude who slurs alot, even Lindsey could hardly understand what he’s saying. He’s got the cutest tiniest puppy ever! He also makes other horse stuff I think it was a whip or something and he made the handle out of deer antlers or something and it looked absolutely exquisite. I also got to go to the feed lot where Lindsey buys all his horse feeds. It’s basically a warehouse for all livestock feed, chickens, goats, pigs, etc. I share the house with Lindsey and his brother Matt, every other week Dakota would come stay with us, sometimes her brother Ryan as well. Ryan’s a good kid. When he’s around he’d go help feed the horses while I water them. Matt has his own boat and he likes to go fishing. He’s a builder, and he’s got a couple backpackers working with him as well. One time he had them come over and we all went boating together at a nearby lake. They were 2 English boys, really funny dudes. Matt showed us how to go surfing on the lake and had the boys try it. It’s kinda like waterskiing but with surf board. You had to get the boat going at the right speed and try to stand up on the surf board. Matt made it seem so easy and he even showed us some stunts. When the boys tried to do it they just kept falling off the board or couldn’t even get up. I didn’t have the nerve to try it, because I can’t swim and I don’t know what lurks in the water.

I eventually got to know the horses and learned most of their names. I never had much experiences with horses, so it was interesting to see how different each horse is, and I soon had a favourite. There was Benny Blue Eyes, who seemed to be the star of the bunch because he seemed to have won quite a few races. However he often needs something like a choke collar to help him breathe before races, otherwise you’d always seem him acting like he’s gagging. Benny’s best friend is right next to him. He always gets anxious whenever Benny goes away for a race and he’d run around in his yard. He’s obnoxious when drinking water, splashing it everywhere, so every morning I come in his water bowl would be empty. My favourite is Jane and little boy, whom I later think is actually a girl. They’re right next to each other and both are very calm and loving and they got along with each other as well. Everytime I finish early I’d spend some time playing with them and both of them would keep rubbing their heads against me. Jane do like to eat a lot though. There’s Rugs, we don’t have a name for him but I call him Rugs because he likes to tug at his rug. Everytime I go in his rug would be hanging off his name or on the ground eventhough I’ve tied it properly, he’s a naughty one. Charlie who can never wait to be fed and likes to tip the feed over. George who likes to roll in the dirty. Socks the mean one, but I think eventually he got used to me and was nicer to me, doesn’t keep his head high so much anymore. There were a few other ones that we don’t have names for. One I think might have had stomache ache or contispation or something for a while and didn’t eat, just laid on the ground all day. He was fine later on. I call these the twins eventhough they’re not, but they’re right across from each other and I thought they seemed like naughty siblings. One likes to pull the hose out from the water bowl when I leave it in to fill it up, and the other likes to tred in the clean water I just filled up. I felt like I was dealing with a bunch of naughty little kids. Another one I thought she was pretty quiet, nothing special about her. But I found out one time after I put the rug on her and took the head collar off and was walking away she actually followed me. Don’t know if she’s developed some kinda bond with me or just thought I was gonna feed her, but I thought that was kinda sweet. There was also another horse I call him The Handsome One. He’s tall, dark, and beautiful. He kinda distanced himself from me at first, wouldn’t really cooperate when I try to put the head collar on him, but he came to eventually and I thought he was quite a nice horse as well. Kinda like when you first met a cool dude and he was just trying to act cool or something but later found out he’s actually a really nice guy.

Funny story. Couple times I went in in the morning, day was still quite dark, the first thing I do is to go get the feeds going, then all of a sudden a horse came running at me, well not really more like trotted towards me, scared the crap out of me. It was Charlie who got out, probably rolled out from under her pen. Guess she heard me and wanted to get fed. Second time it was Rugs. It was quite windy the night before so his cable fence fell over and he got out. I was able to get them back both times no problem. Rugs kept wanting to get out when I was trying to put the cable fence up, that naughty boy.

Lindsey said I could go with him to the races tomorrow. It'd be my first horse race! We have a racecourse by my house back home but they hardly have races, and I never got a chance to go to one. This would be exciting.