After Henry left the ranch, Jessie finished the morning chores, and then went to get the colt. The young horse was looking forward to their time together more often these days. He was beginning to understand there was a reason for the things Jessie was doing with him. He was learning new skills that he could have never imagined, like following a human, moving into pressure instead of away from it, and exploring things that he initially found frightening.

On this morning, Jessie led him from his new pen with the geldings and took him to his old pen. Usually Jessie would stay with him in the pen for a while. But on this day, she did something different. She brought him into the pen, took his halter off and then turned and left the pen. At first, the colt was a little confused. He became even more confused when he turned from the gate he had followed Jessie back to and saw a saddle and saddle pad sitting in the middle of the pen. During all the time he had spent in the pen, nothing like that had ever been in there. Immediately, the colt snorted and began taking evasive action from the foreign and potentially life-threatening object by running back and forth. The saddle, of course, sat there.

It wasn’t long before the colt began to understand that the object wasn’t chasing him, and so at least for the time being, it posed no threat. After slowing down, he faced it, and watched it carefully for a very long time before finally deciding to investigate. He remained alert and cautious as he inched his way up two or three steps at a time, then stopped and retreated, only to try again when he felt comfortable enough. By the time the sun was getting high in the cloudless sky, the colt had made his way all the way up to the saddle, cautiously smelled its leather, the metal-covered stirrups and the saddle pad. It was the pad that smelled the most familiar. It smelled of horse, but not just one. It smelled of numerous horses, too many for him to distinguish any one in particular. The saddle also smelled of horses, but the odor was faint and covered by oil, soap and dust. He lingered by the saddle for several minutes, moving it with his nose and picking the saddle pad up with his teeth, before finally ignoring it completely and going to get a drink of water from the tank by the gate.

An hour or so after she had first turned the colt in the pen with the saddle, and with the day’s lesson having been completed, Jessie returned, slipped his halter on and led him back to his new pen with the geldings. The rest of the day passed uneventfully for the colt. He spent it standing in the shade of an oak tree at the bottom of the paddock, eating and sleeping, and things on the ranch felt as peaceful to him as they always had.