Heritage Tales - Earaheedy Pope

“So did this horse excel a common one in shape, in courage,

colour, pace and bone...

What a horse should have he did not lack,

save a proud rider on so proud a back.”

~-Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

Earaheedy Pope was named after Fred Pope, the original breeder of the Earaheedy Greys. As Sheila says, and as we are sure Pope knows, he is probably a real "one of a kind", as "the only set of balls" rescued from Earaheedy. He is an impressive heritage horse - a good looking lad and he knows it.

Pope is thought to be a combination of old bloodline Percheron/Arabian/Throughbred, like all the Earaheedys. Now a registered Foundation Waler stallion (with the Waler Horse Society of Australia Inc.), we are also seeking dual registration for Pope and the other greys as Percheron Warmbloods or perhaps Percheron Sporthorses - because this they also appear to be. Possibly one of the oldest surviving continuously bred lines of part Percherons in WA.

When rescued in 2005 he was somewhere between two and three years of age. The first lot of horses came from several different mobs. Thin but not as emaciated as some of the mares, Pope was run in from a separate area of the huge station, his overall "look" noted as being a little different to that of the mares. As a colt who had never had anyone else to look after except for himself, he put on condition relatively quickly once rescued. Because he was young and had never previously experienced anything bad in the hands of man, Pope did not take too long to become tame, although at first, when older stallion Rex was with the mob, he was very meek and mild, uninclined to challenge the vastly more experienced and defensive stallion. Pope behaved, infact, very much like a yearling or a filly, sticking with the older mares and younger foals, keeping his head down and not causing any problems whatsoever.

Pope was the first to approach human food and human water and, not much later, the first to approach humans. He was curious, intelligent, and forward. Pope liked company and he liked to know what was going on.

When Rex was removed from the mob however, over the course of the next several days, young Pope underwent a remarkable change. Sheila notes that, quite literally, his balls dropped. He went from unnoticed youngling to fully fledged, feisty big colt. He assumed command of the mares (all save Margaret, who as the biggest lead mare took some convincing!), and became much stroppier, for a time, during training. As if to prove he really did have what it took to be a wild herd stallion.

Pope began to work, of his own accord, several months later, on Sheila's property near Margaret River. He was allowed to run with several of the Earaheedy mares, and following Rex's death, fairly quickly got old Ruth and Violet in foal.

At about this time Neil Innes, a highly experienced natural horsemanship trainer from Margaret River, was engaged to educate Pope to saddle. Pope was an active, working herd stallion now (probably around 3 years of age), and naturally challenged Neil's right to direct him. After some initial excitment (Pope's natural skill in balanced rearing was impressive to watch!), he settled down, to the point where Neil was riding him out in company with geldings and later, standing unaided on his back, and teaching Pope to kneel.

Sheila chose to keep Pope, and keep him a stallion, and in December 2005 he came to live at Wadi Farm in Nannup, where he is currently still agisted, spending a few weeks elsewhere every year performing stud duties.

Now five years of age, Pope stands just on 16hh. A pale grey stallion who will lighten to grey-white with age, he is often mistaken for Andalusian due to the Percheron/Arab influence which gives him a Spanish look. He has a kind, expressive eye and a sensible, gentle temperament, both of which he passes on to his progeny, along with great bone and those fabulously hard feet which all heritage horses possess. A nasty scar on one side of his mouth makes him appear almost parrot-mouthed on that side, although closer inspection reveals an old but clearly fierce injury. Did he cut his mouth on wire, on the station, or was he perhaps kicked by another horse? We will never know, but it was clearly a nasty injury and the fact that he survived it is testament to his hardiness.

Pope has been the star of several photo stories (you know, the whole wild white stallion thing), and, in 2006, appeared on the WA ABC's Stateline programme in a story about the destocking of Earaheedy Station. When the camera man and reporter first arrived, their one request was that they wanted footage of a white horse galloping across the paddocks...hmmm...most heritage horses are hard to get moving at the best of times, due to their inherent survival instinct. (If you run you expend energy and therefore they don't generally do it unless really pushed.)

In the end, after failing to encourage the Earaheedy mares to run, the only way the poor camera man got a few seconds of decent footage was when Sheila took a new mare into Pope. There followed some squealing, some prancing, some running about...and two minutes later it was all over, with Pope and the mare settling down to graze together. It was an amusing but telling comment on the fundamental nature of these horses, and of one stallion in particular.

Article by KA Waddington, photos at above and right of Pope between 2005 - 2008, taken by Fran Jackson, Lynn Fenti, Len Neilsen and KA Waddington. Reproduced with thanks.