The first time I saw him he was running through this large pen jumping chamesa that was as tall as he was.  The lady who owned him was frightened of handling him.  He was a handful.  I was working for her for free so I could learn about miniature horses.  She had a herd.

I agreed to work with Sarg to see if I could help out.  Catching him was not the problem as much as hanging on to him.  The first time I put him in a round pen he taught me about the three rule.  Every time you asked him to do something, he would do it three times and then was done. The first time he was checking it out, the second time he did what you asked and the third time he was showing off.  

He was getting a little above himself and my husband put him in the round pen to let him work some of the attitude off.  Bill pushed him.  When walking back to his pen Sarg just reached over and bit his leg.  Bill jumped but Sarg did not.  He knew what he was doing.  The three of us knew what had happened.  Bill had gone over the three, and paid.

I tried to buy that horse for over a year and was refused.  Then one night I got a phone call.  She needed money.  I was afraid after all this time that she would change her mind.  I hooked up the trailer and discovered that I had no tail lights.  I ended up taping flash lights on the trailer and off I went.

The first month after I got him home every time I worked with him I came out of the pen frustrated and sometimes in tears.  He had been handled in fear for so long he was fearful also.  If you lost eye contact he would charge you.  You could make him do things but that was not what I was after.

I was told that he was trained to drive.  Getting the bridle on his was the problem.  Halter or bridle, he would wait until you started to buckle and he would rear up between your hands.  I finally learned to keep a halter around his neck until I actually had the bridle in place.

He could drive, I think the better description was that he had been hitched up.  The driving took some time.  He went through a period when he would rear up and go over the shafts.   I took him into the aurora when I knew he couldn’t pull me.  I got into the cart and told him to go.  He started to get mad and started to bounce.  I got ready.  When he left the ground I jumped out and caught him under his front legs and held him up.  We had a conversation eye to eye.  He never did that again.  

The first drive every spring was a show.  He said that there were mares in heat and he was not leaving.  We went.  It wasn’t easy.  We even had one man stop and tell me I was abusing my horse.   We would only go out for a couple of miles and then come home.  He figured out that I was not going to take his ladies away.  After that I could take him to shows and parades and events and he would behave like a gentleman.  As soon as the tailor hit the dirt road the ears would go flat until he checked all the fences to make sure no one touched his mares while he was gone.  He would settle after that.   He turned into the best driving horse I ever had.