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After school Hallie and her friends would race
home, saddle the horses and then go riding. Hallie had always wanted
a Morgan, and remembers getting The Morgan Horse Magazine. With her
friends she’d ride the dirt roads, up Victory Street, where Raymond
Acre lived.
Raymond had a beautiful Morgan stallion that had come from Vermont
by rail in a boxcar in the 30’s. Mando was a son of Mansfield (out
of Eudora) and she remembers that “we just drooled over that horse.”
On one occasion on Raymond put one of Hallie’s friends up on Mando
(another Morgan that knew tricks) and when she asked how to steer
the horse Ray remarked “I just guide him along.” Hallie remembers
Mando as an “old type Morgan” of exceptional beauty.
It was around that time that she had a chance to get Rico, a son of
Mando – Rico was ˝ Morgan and Hallie purchased him as a four month
old. Hallie did all of the training on Rico as she did with Nip, and
she remembers that though it was unpopular in that day, all she had
to do was put her hand down on his neck and he would single foot – a
gait that comfortably had her passing other horses that were at a
trot.
Listen
to Hallie share her memories of Mando here...
Hallie married Donald Sweeting and continued to live on the farm.
Besides the growing brood of horses, there were goats, cows, and
Suffolk sheep (of which she still has some descendants of.) Hallie
worked for the canning factory, as the Deputy Town Clerk of
Sterling, and is now the Town Historian. Her husband farmed and then
went on to work in the local Hardware store.
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