By Leslie Gibson
Herald-Banner Staff
The Arabian horse was brought into the bidding arena with a barbed wire halter around its head.
As always, 7-year-old Margaret Meehan had accompanied her mother, a certified trainer and buyer of horses, and teacher of children, to the horse auction in Saudi Arabia, where the family lived.
“My mom and I had gone to an auction. They had one gray Arabian mare brought in out of the desert. They had a barbed wire halter on her,” recalled now Margaret Kennedy of Rockwall, as she watched young riders canter thoroughbreds and Arabians she has since rescued. “Blood was coming out of her ears. She was skin and bones.”
She pled with her mother to buy the horse. Mrs. Meehan bid on the horse and won; as she approached, the horse jerked away.
The Bedouin trader who had brought the horse in, along with other animals from the desert to sell, was close by.
Kennedy recalled that the traders brought in all kinds of animals from the desert, including camels.
“My Mom had this whip and hit the guy right across the mid-section with the whip,” Kennedy said, then added that her mother feigned an apology stating, “So sorry, so sorry, crazy horse.”
After the purchase, mother and daughter worked to remove the halter. Kennedy’s arm was alongside the mare’s head, and as the barbed wire came away from being embedded in the hide near the ear and eye, the horse took a deep bite on the little girl’s arm muscle.
“Don’t pull away, don’t pull away,” said her mother, who took over and bound the arm.
Ultimately Kennedy, and what turned out to be her first rescue project, were healed.
“I had a mother who taught me if you want something in life, you have to take the bad with the good,” Kennedy said in a recent interview.
She recalled a black Arabian mare she had as a pre-teen, “the most stunning thing under saddle,” she said. After giving birth, and being released for riding again, she would try to run her rider into fences or roll over her. With persistence, she became as “good as gold,” Kennedy said.
“I had to take her attitude to get it to that point,” she said.
“You have to grin and bear it through the tough times,” she said, and noted that is in personal life as well as in horse care.
For her, though, horses are part of her personal life.
That first rescue horse, Hamsha, which means The Dancer, stayed with the family during their 10 years in Saudi Arabia. When they moved, a prince bought her and other horses from the family, and she lived her remaining days with that family.
Ever since, Kennedy has stayed involved with horses, and today she finds, buys and rehabilitates Arabians and thoroughbreds.
She and her husband of five years, Jeremy Kennedy, and seven of the nine children between them, live on State Highway 276 on property where she trains horses and teaches youngsters English riding, dressage and jumping lesson and how to care for horses.
In the last five months, she has seen a 13-year-old girl from Fate blossom into a confident rider, and an 14-year-old “terror” of an Arabian horse find a human with whom he feels a deep bond.
“Chelo had been to several farms to be broken, he was a terror,” said Kennedy. The owner was at the end of her money and ability to deal with him. Kennedy saw promise in the gelding and later, in Michelle Lapinsky of Fate.
Lapinsky said, “I was very, very scared to basically even ride because I had been thrown off horses so many times at my previous barn. (Kennedy’s) built up my confidence and now I’m not afraid of anything.”
“She fell deeply in love with Chelo,” said Kennedy.
“He gets a little bit timid at times, and they match. She has to be courageous for him, and he has to be courageous for her. When they ride, they float.”
Riley Dennis, of Royse City, another student, is not timid. The 14-year-old is shooting for the Olympics, and said she wants to try anything set in front of her.
Dennis boards her rescue horse, 7-year-old Sampson, with Kennedy’s horses. Sampson had injuries and been abused, after being retired as a race horse.
As Dennis took him over jumps Thursday, Kennedy, said, “Its funny to see her ride him now. His head’s down, he’s muscled up and sleek.” Sampson, who has been with Dennis for a year, learned to trust rider and trainer, and developed physically because of what Kennedy teaches: English dressage. “It makes the horse supple and sleek,” she said.
Dressage teaches the horse to dance, do certain shapes such as serpentines, circles, walk/trot, fast and slow canter, and go at particular speeds at particular points.
“It is the basis for everything a young rider should learn,” Kennedy said. “Even Western people are teaching dressage. If a horse is nice and supple and can to shapes and turns, there is not much it can’t do for you. It helps with pole bending and barrel racing; helps you turn quick and change leads” she said.
Kennedy at age 17 was certified as a fifth-level dressage teacher, by the Federal Dressage Association, through events in Dover, England, where she spent two summers.
Her father, George Meehan, is from England, and still hunts on her parents’ Virginia property. Her mother still works with horses. She was trained in Ireland and worked for an air force base teaching children to ride English.
Kennedy is also a certified trainer through the Jockey Association and Arabian Horse Association, which she achieved in her 20s.
“No mother could be more proud of her daughter than I am,” said Anita Meehan, in a phone call. “She is a good daughter, mother, and horse person. She loves animals.”
Her mother has been her main teacher throughout her life, until Kennedy went to boarding school, and then helped Kennedy procure her first rescue horses.
One is PJ, a gray thoroughbred, who who had foundered on all four legs, due to being raced well over the limit of twice a month at age 2. The elderly owner alerted Kennedy that a hired trainer was racing the mare illegally, and against her wishes, and told Kennedy where to find them. Kennedy and her husband showed up at the barn in time to see the trainer “literally pulling her out of the stall,” Kennedy said. The trainer willingly signed the papers and turned her over, she said. She could not walk,” Kennedy said. For the next year, PJ took medicines, steroids and was hand-fed, as she stood in a stall wearing cushioned shoes.
Silver Storm, a full-blooded Arabian, was rescued from a pasture knee-high to the horse in mud. The man who had the horse had died, the widow did not have the wherewithall to keep horses.
“He was the hardest to break; he’s incredibly smart. He does everything. My son has been riding this horse since he was age 4.” Early on, Silver was certified as safe for disabled children.
Jason, the son to whom she referred, is now age 14, and said Silver Storm is easy to ride. “He knows not to mess up,” he said. Jason credits the horse’s “amazing teacher,” his mother. Jason no longer rides competitively but stays involved in caring for the horses; he wants to be a veterinarian.
He feeds the horses before school, and works with his mother and the horses after school and in the summers.
“I ask him to do a lot,” Kennedy said of her son.
Though neither he, nor her 16-year-old daughter Danielle ride competitively now, Kennedy feels so good that they safely tack up the horses and ride as they did on Saturday afternoon.
TK was the first horse to introduce himself Thursday as students arrived for training. Born of racing parents, his knees did not develop by age two in time for racing, so the owners did not want him. “He reared up and flipped himself over,” she said when he first came to them. In the pasture where he had been left, the handlers would grab him by the ears to pull him down, and drug him to clip his feet.
“You have to know which ones you can help and which you can’t,” said Kennedy. “Why they are the way they are.” For example, she recalled a black Arabian/Quarter Horse mix with a bicycle chain bit in her mouth. The handlers said she would kick and bite them. “Think about what you are doing to her,” Kennedy said. “I rode her with a hackamore with no bit, nice and easy.”
If you approach an animal who’s just mean, you see it,” she said. In others, “You see the human influence and whether it is good or bad. If they are 2, or 4 or 5 or 6 years old, they have a lot of love left. If it is an older horse, sometimes that memory won’t go away. Even some young horses won’t forget,” she said.
She has two friends who specialize in taking in crippled horses, and Kennedy has called on them. Sometimes the humane thing to do is put them down, she said.
“Horses are like people, they have their niche in life,” said Kennedy. “Work, show, circus — if you find that niche and put them with the right people, it works,” she said.
Sometimes, the horse picks out the right person.
When the Kennedy’s rescued T.K., they found Prince Valiant, a purebred white Arabian being used as a teaser — he brought the mares in heat but was kept away from them.
“He was a “rambunctious nut case,” said Kennedy.
Under her training his calm demeanor and his love for people emerged. He didn’t even need a halter. He became a stable favorite with everyone, as a result, teaching that “you don’t have to be afraid of a big, bad stallion, Kennedy said.
Prince Valiant was devoted to Kennedy’s husband. “He stole my husband’s heart, and he didn’t like horses,” Kennedy said. Prince Valiant was 10 years old when he passed away recently.
But he has passed his love for people to his foal, Lightning Grace. She was born in a lightning storm on May 18.
Delisa Lapinksy, as she watched her daughter ride, said of Kennedy, “We love her,” and noted that Kennedy puts safety and soundness of horses first, noting, “She always makes sure the horse is sound and the girls are always safe.”
Just as Kennedy’s mother helped her daughter learn and love horsemanship, Kennedy is doing for her students and children.
“The neatest thing for me is to watch is how it carries on — a tradition from trainer to student and watching the student become the trainer. Even when they’re riding for fun, they will say to each other, ‘he’s on the wrong lead’, or ‘you need to sit up’. They try really hard to help each other bring out the best in each other.”
Kennedy’s children joined the students in the corrals as midday passed.
“It’s hot, and they’re out here,” Kennedy noted. “Riding is calming, relaxing, exhilarating. It is riding a piece of life.”
