MY FIRST
by Glenye Cain Oakford
46 WINTER ISSUE 2019
In his early years, Harpo the Hackney pony had a bad reputation around the Georgetown, Ky., area. Admittedly, he’d had an unlucky start in life: deemed to be not quite show-ring quality, he’d been given away and then landed with an alleged animal hoarder who neglected him. While neighbors complained to area authorities about the declining condition of the horses on the property, the young Hackney stallion “took matters into his own hands,” as his current owner, Jennifer Keeler of Yellow Horse Marketing, put it. He became a local nuisance. He repeatedly escaped and damaged property, thieved hay, and tore up yards, accumulating a long rap sheet with area animal control authorities, whom he seemed to enjoy tormenting. “He would wreak havoc throughout the neighbors’ property, not only eating everything but harassing young maidens and any other trouble he could get into,” said Keeler, who co-owns Harpo with her husband, US Equestrian’s chief financial officer David Harris. “He was a neighborhood thug. The
neighbors would call the police, and apparently he learned to take off when the police came. He’d literally run back to his property and jump back in. As unbelievable as it sounds, this is the report we got from the Scott County animal control officers, who pursued him for quite some time.” In 2008, a neighbor finally captured Harpo, who was then about five, by shutting him in a dog kennel. “But it wasn’t easy, because it turned out that he also was very aggressive toward humans,” Keeler said. “We don’t know whether that was out of fear because of abuse or what had happened to cause that behavior.” His former owner refused to take Harpo back, signing him over to animal control. But, given his aggression and his poor general condition, Harpo was branded unadoptable. He was sent to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky., where he was scheduled to be put down. And there, miraculously, his luck changed.
PHOTO: JANEENE JENNINGS
MY FIRST HACKNEY DRIVING PONY
Harpo the Hackney pony, once neglected and considered a rogue, became the pony of a lifetime for Jennifer Keeler and David Harris and introduced them to the sport of combined driving