Gypsy is a wild Mustang who came to Hanaeleh over a decade ago. After working with her for several years and not finding any decent adoption prospects, Elizabeth finally decided to adopt her. Gypsy seemed unsurprised by this, as she had already declared herself high ruler over all of the Hanaeleh horses.
Gypsy continues to rule over all of the horses at Hanaeleh in her usually queenly way. She also seems to rule over the volunteers by refusing to be nice to them unless they give her treats- which they invariably do in order to gain her favor. She is nice to them, then- as long as they have food. Once the food is gone, she gives the volunteers a look as if to say, “You are no longer of any use to me. You may go.”
One of the interesting things we noticed about Gypsy is that every horse we put next to her begins to poop in a line around the outside or back of the stall, instead of the horse just pooping wherever he stood. We’re not sure how or why she was able to teach the horses to do this, as she was not turned out with them- but it certainly makes things much easier when cleaning stalls!
Elizabeth doesn’t ride Gypsy very much because Gypsy walks VERY slowly out on trail, and because her schedule doesn’t permit it, but she will ride Tamahome while ponying Gypsy. Gypsy is great out on trail and is a steadying force for Tamahome, who will sometimes get PTSD while out on trail due to his previous abuse. When he starts getting upset, he looks over at Gypsy, who does the horsie equivalent of rolling her eyes at him, and he calms himself down.
Gypsy seems to enjoy her status as queen horsie out at Hanaeleh, and we love seeing her interacting more with the volunteers. We look forward to feeding her more treats to buy her love in the years to come!
