So...Tuesday

Wait, it is Tuesday, right? You're going to ride Tuesday? That's today! Today is Tuesday!

Is it any wonder the mare has already accumulated several nicknames? Tooey, Too, Tutu, and for some reason...Tooper. As well as Mama Mare due to her odd protectiveness of my friend's paint filly.

Basically, what ha happened wuz... she was overdue and finally came on a Tuesday.

But I digress. The whole point of me feeling like a silly blogger is for me to track my progress with this girl. As I mentioned, I no longer feel like my riding is up to par. I see pictures of myself in the saddle and am generally mortified. Oh my god, do I really ride like that? Shoulder twisted? Chair seat? Shlumpy cockroach shoulders like I screech at my students for? And that, what is THAT? 

It's amazing how you can feel like you're the shiznit and having a really good ride, and then you get home and look at the video/pictures you coerced your sister/friend/boyfriend/random bored looking person into taking, and you realize the reason your ride felt so effortless was because you spent 45 minutes riding like a sack of potatoes.

I find this unacceptable, and I am so tired of my self esteem crashing and feeling like a horrible rider. I'm tired of girls eight years younger than me, with their awful, elegant long legs and trim little torsos make me feel worthless and shlumpy and floppy. I'm tired of wondering, now that I know how crap I look, if when my students and their parents watch me ride, they wonder why I'm micromanaging every move the kid makes.

My sister took some photos of me riding the other week. When I got home and looked at them, I promptly sent BO a text begging her for help. I need a lunge lesson, I need you to screech at me and beat me with a crop the next time my body does THAT THING.

She promptly put me in one of her lessons warming up a kid's pony while said kid rode without stirrups on a lesson horse for a while, and when the kid was ready to jump, told me to stay and ride said lesson horse without stirrups and work on my leg and seat.

Enter: gelatinous pony

Meet Lilly Gray. Obviously a fancy shmancy athletic little gal, eh? You would never guess that Lilly is equus mondo girthus, with an eating disorder that involves eating anything that might be food, smells like food, or could replace food in an emergency. She is some sort of all American mutt; she looks like a tiny draft pony, but has previously had a little racking filly at her side. So who knows. All I know is that within two minutes of alternately sitting and posting the trot without stirrups, trying not to do so much butt plopping, trying to keep my leg under me, and trying to not let my devious twisty right shoulder get to twistin', I had a raging stitch in my side. And then almost got pulled off over her head when she decided sweeping off to the right (and towards escape) sounded like a much better idea than continuing our nice circle to the left. I felt just like a kid, I swear. However: I rode Too with BO a couple days later and could feel a difference. So, bright idea: Saturday, ride Too with no stirrups and be AWESOME!!

Cuidado: Fat daisy cutting pony does NOT = fat, quite suspended horse with large engine. You may experience issues.

Regardless, I will work as hard as it takes. Because so far, the documented journey with Too is this:

  

And so we see the chairseat emerge!

To be fair, I can explain away that day's shortcomings. I am, as we can delicately say, vertically challenged. When I made the hour trip to finally try this mare out, I brought my saddle...which ended up not being quite wide enough. Too didn't seem to be in any discomfort (although it is quite possible the two-year layer of jello covering her spine masked her nerve endings from feeling any fitting discrepancies), but I, however, suffered thirty minutes worth of G forces pulling said saddle and its top heavy rider to the outside of the tiny 12m circle we were forced to spend our entire ride in. (Hint to dude who was admittedly kind enough to let me and ex-owner use his covered pen while he was not home: Level your footing! Rail= danger danger!) I did my best to stay nice and tall and centered, which seems to have prevented icky right shoulder from coming into play (never underestimate what the fear of busting your ass can do for ya), but I was, however, bracing against my stirrups trying to keep the saddle upright on her back. Loved her to death, though, and I suppose enough laps around a 12m circle will encourage any horse to soften its face and relax, no matter how many years she spent reclining in a pasture and enjoying the good life.

Eight days later: second ride at her new home. The previous day, after ex-owner drove off with my ex-colt, I discovered that when put in a large jumping ring, my new horse was a biiiit more horse than she was in repetitive 12m circles. No matter, though; I honestly prefer a forward horse, as my aforementioned midget legs make waking up a slow-natured equine a little tiresome. The next day was a little calmer, and everyone and their mother took Too for a spin. And looked significantly better in photos than I:

So it occurred to me that perhaps I should focus on not riding like a tipsy cockroach. So I started practicing what I was preaching to the munchkins: puppet string to the chest, sit up like a ballerina, all that general mumbo jumbo.

Two weeks later:

Relatively acceptable for where I'm coming from...

But, nope, wait, there's that nasty right shoulder again, sitting about an inch and a half in front of the left.

Meanwhile, Too has her own obstacles to overcome; mainly, not overly overcoming her obstacles. It took a few rides for her to figure out trot poles were not necessarily supposed to be leapt over.

The biggest obstacle we met was the canter. Of course I didn't canter her before making the trade; do I look like a fool? *rolly eyes* It just was not happening in that tiny pen, and I'd seen plenty of video of her going to know I liked her.

I did not anticipate her not having a right lead, and crossfiring on the left lead. Oh not another Marco!

Wrong lead again..

and again, and again, etc etc...

I'm an understanding person, luckily, and try not to get frustrated. I kept in mind that this mare with a relatively long back had been pasture fluff for two years and was out of shape and certainly weak. We worked on it. We did lots of circles and figure eights and serpentines, and back stretches before and after every ride. We got it.

Or rather, she got it and I held on. I am still working out how to ride this canter. She has so much thrust (as that last picture shows; she wasn't going particularly fast) and I'm about as out of shape as she is. The problem I'm facing is that I'm over jumping and such, beyond the occasional low fence for a little variety. I want to do dressage with Too, but right now sitting the canter is HARD...but I'm trying so hard not to ride her like a hunter. Especially with this tendency to leaaannn...that she has.

As far as the crossfiring to the left, I have my own theory about that. She won't do it if I can keep her correctly bent just a bit to the inside... which, with my shoulder and/or whatever is causing it to shoot forward, seems much easier going to the right. My theory is that I am somehow blocking her going to the left, or somehow signalling for a change...something.





These pictures were from the beginning of February. I am hoping that not long from now, I can navigate back to these and see a world of difference. We are far from perfect and elegant right now (curse you, model kids and your lovely elegant horses), but for the first time since I sold Marco, I am regularly enjoying time in the saddle. I always have fun when I can ride Ben, but those times are few and far in between, and nothing ever really clicked when I rode PJ. There isn't a ride on this mare where I don't think to myself at least once, "I love riding this horse!" She is so fun, and such a different ride than anything I've ever had before. I am truly enjoying this girl, and enjoying the journey to get where I want with her.



 

Baby Butter Grows Up, and Tuesday

When I asked BO where in the heck Marco got his name, considering he was registered as RE Zans Pacific Jack, she said, "Oh, it's because she has that Polo stallion."

Yeah. She named Marco so she could go out and call her stallions. Marco! Polo! All righty then.

So, the February before Marco left, when BO told me she was going to go pick up a colt from the same lady, I probably should have guessed that his name, PJ, stood for...you guessed it (probably faster than me) Polo Junior. If I had known he was going to end up as my horse, I would have changed his name to something else, anything else, so fast it would have made his head spin. I've never liked people names for animals, and so far, my first three horses were people named. The lady was having trouble financially and gave PJ to my BO as a weanling. When the trailer pulled up, BO looked at me and said go get him. I opened the door and discovered the dorkiest looking knobby kneed baby I'd ever seen. I mean, he was SO dorky.

He was absolutely full of worms, and extremely skittish and hard to catch. I'd never really been able to get my hands on a foal, so when BO told me to handle him extensively every day, walk him around the place, etc, I was thrilled. I remember one of the barn moms watching me work with him one day and saying that he was going to be my next project horse. "Nah," I said. What was I going to do with a baby?

Slowly, PJ, or Baby Butter as I always called him, grew and filled out. We had to balance his food intake just so, to prevent him growing too quickly for his tendons and ligaments to support, and yet to keep weight on this elastic foal that kept stretching upwards and upwards. By the time he was a yearling, he was already as tall as my Arab.

Still a little dorky. He never grew out of that. The ears, either.

It didn't take him long at all to learn how to tie, cross tie, pick up his feet, wear a saddle and bit. He was kind of like Marco all over again. Very easy going, not bothered by much of anything, and a joy to work with. I grew pretty fond of him, and when BO told me one day that someone had driven past the barn, saw him in the pasture and called her, offering to buy him. At that point, she still wanted him for herself when he grew up, so she politely declined. I panicked; he was MY baby, my protege! I told her if she ever wanted to sell him, I would take him if Marco was sold and I didn't have another horse. In the meantime, the baby kept on growing. His best friend was our oldest retired school horse, a grumpy curmudgeon named Rat who couldn't be turned out with the other horses, because, at 37 years old, he was still too aggressive towards the other horses and would invariably end up biting off more than he could chew and would injure himself somehow. So he and Butter had the run of the barnyard. Rat took the responsibility of raising his new charge very seriously, and would go into fits when they were seperated for mealtimes. Eventually we had to turn PJ out with the ponies during the day so he could learn to be a horse in a herd setting...Rat was not happy. He would spend the day nervously pacing the front of his stall and calling frequently for his child. 

The seperation anxiety got worse when we gelded PJ. We took him to a nice open area where he could go down and get back up without injury to himself. As the vet was preparing for the surgery, Rat went absolutely ballistic in his stall. Exasperated, BO turned to me and said, "Will you go get him?" I went in the barn and pulled Rat out, and brought him into the ring. I stood with him about twelve feet away from PJ, and when the general anesthesia Doc gave him hit, he crumpled to the ground. I swear to god if Rat had eyebrows they would have shot way up his bald old forehead as he took a worried step forward. Oh my god, you've gone and KILLED HIM! He was horrified! Even though Rat and I stood guard during the whole procedure and the recovery, watching his child fall like that obviously stood out in his otherwise senile mind, and he would not rest until his colt was safely by his side again. PJ, bless him, was affectionate to Rat but never returned the same neurotic attachment the old man displayed.

It was about this time that Marco left. On the way back from GA with an empty, Arab-less trailer, BO and her husband tried to console me by saying over and over that I could have PJ, he loved me, and he was a nice horse. All of those thing were true, but I was absolutely heartbroken and a piece of my heart hardened itself against poor blameless PJ. I remained fond of him as long as I had him, but I never allowed myself to form the deep bond I'd had with Marco and still have with Ben. I retained the professional relationship I had failed to maintain with Marco. 

When PJ turned two, I started backing him and sitting on him for five minutes at a time once or twice a week. Same drill as with Marco; a person on each side and a few steps forward, call it a day. He never flinched. 

  

  All was going well until the first time we tried a few steps of trot. My best friend was visiting from WA and lucky for me, had the camera rolling. I was doing our normal drill of a short walk when BO walked by and said, "Trot that thing a few steps!" "Ehh," I said. "I'll wait." "Oh, come on, he'll be fine! Just a few steps and then walk." "Should we put a lunge line on him or something?" "No. Trot."

I don't blame her. I was nervous, PJ was already in an oddly distractable mood that day, the saddle I was sitting in fit him much better than it fit me, and I didn't have the stirrups adjusted for my legs since I wasn't using them to just walk him anyway. BO had offered to send him to a cowboy to be broken with her 3yo filly in a few months, and I had declined, since he was so quiet and Marco had been so easy. Without thinking about it, I crammed my feet into the much-too-short stirrups and gently asked for a trot. Which I got...for about three strides before he exploded and took off at a sideways, scrambly scooter pooter run across the ring. Needless to say, I was ill prepared and ate dirt. Okay, that's fine, who can blame him? I gingerly got up, as I had re-rolled the ankle I'd injured falling off the tractor. Before I had even caught him, BO had grabbed a lunge line and was ready to hold him this time. He was unsettled, so I talked to him as I got back on. "Walk on," BO said. We moved into a prancy, unsettled walk. "Now, easy, a few strides of trot and come back down." Okay, a few strides of jiggy sideways trot. "And one more time and that's enough."

Um, specify for me: trot one more time, or rip the lunge line away from BO and scooter pooter and eat dirt one more time? My dear friend, love her to DEATH, figured if I was going to keep falling off, she might as well get a picture of it. (Did I mention she's a brilliant photographer? As a matter of fact, rodeos and bucking horses are her specialty, you might say.)

 It was not his fault. He was a baby two year-old and didn't know anything, and we pushed him too fast and scared him, as well as treating him like an average bomb proof horse instead of the ignorant, reactive creature most two year-olds are. Serves me right, laying in the dirt after hitting the ground on my back with a terrific impact that left me unable to catch my breath. I tried to roll over and get up but couldn't move. So I laid in the dirt for a few minutes and took the time to reflect on my day, wonder if I'd paid my cell phone bill, and wonder if BO should be calling an ambulance. She leaned over me and said, "I'm sending him to Chris." I nodded my head and said, "Okay." That sounded like a fine idea after all. I lifted my head and asked my friend if PJ was okay; he was, she had caught him and was working him a little bit to try to get him calmed down. All of a sudden, I had an adrenaline rush and somehow popped up from the ground like nothing had happened, and said I wanted to get on and walk him around for a minute so we could end on a good note.

I got on and he barely walked two steps before pulling away from BO AGAIN and taking off. He wanted to make sure we knew he was done for the day. My foggy brain slowly creaked into action and I realized that if I fell off of him again, I probably wasn't going to get up and walk out of the ring. My ankle was aching, my lower back was throbbing and felt funny, and the waistband of my jeans was feeling a little snug. Luckily for me, he aimed himself at the fence and in what I am sure was an impressively elegant display of horsemanship, I hauled back on the reins and WHOAHed him. He stood there quivering with his tail tucked between his legs as BO slowly advanced on him and picked up the trailing lunge line. Photographer Buddy got a lead rope and clipped him on the other side, and we slowly walked a circle and I dismounted. We took him into the barn and I had a knee-jerk reaction emotional breakdown. Photographer Buddy looked alarmed, so I choked out that I was fine but really just had to cry for a sec. If you've ever had a busted tailbone, you can imagine the discomfort I was in for months to come. My lower back was so swollen by the time I got home that I could barely get my jeans off, and Boyfrand had to lift me into bed that night since I couldn't make it. I walked like a 97 year-old for days. The bright side was that I got out of work for the remainder of Photographer Buddy's visit. It was time well spent, even if she couldn't control the occasional giggle at my painstaking efforts to maneuver my stiff body in and out of my car.

Experienced horse people? Want to guess what lesson my colt taught me?

Needless to say, PJ got plenty of time off until he went to the cowboy at about 2 1/2.

He and Ben were pretty good pals. I've never met a horse Benny didn't befriend.

The day came for PJ and BO's filly Rose to depart to get broken. The cowboy reported the next day that PJ was scared of everything and he could barely get his hands on him. "How much work has he had?" Uhh... are you sure you're talking about my colt? He quickly settled in, however, and was quickly quiet w/t/c, and the cowboy only kept him for about a month, mostly to work on loading and unloading in the trailer. A few days before he was supposed to come home, I went out to ride him to make sure we were fine. It goes without saying that my heart rate was a little high that day.

I didn't recognize him at first; I was pretty sure he was gray when I sent him off, and he had grown another inch and further stretched his body and was a gangly bay creature that my eyes passed over at least three times while I tried to figure out which horse tied to the fence was mine. My nerves were completely unfounded; the cowboy did a great job with him, and if anyone in the central Alabama area needs a good trainer to work a colt, I can recommend a good fellow.

PJ came home, and I rode him once every week or three... I wasn't comfortable with working a young horse, so I tried to let him spend his summer growing up, and planned on going to work in the spring when he was a solid three year-old. Mostly, I watched the super interesting process of his color change.

Day after coming home.

I had always planned to leave his beautiful long mane until it was time for him to grow up and start to go to work; sort of akin to your toddler's first haircut being a sign of them no longer being a baby. But one day I got bored and took it off. The change was incredible. He was an adult. Where was little Baby Butter?

By this point, he was pushing 16hh. He was a nice baby with good gaits, and definitely a handsome animal, but every time I got on his back, the less I felt compatible with him. He was so much horse for a five foot tall girl to hold together, and not very forward and took more leg than I could give. One day, I put up an ad.

(Incidentally, isn't Boyfran handsome?)

 It took no time at all. I didn't think Marco would ever sell. I quickly had a few replies to his ad, including one from a woman asking if I would be interested in a trade. She said she had a 7yo TB/WB cross that she had bred herself, and although both parents were over 16hh, "Tuesday" had barely made it over 15hh, and was much too small for her. I told her I wasn't really interested in a trade; I had hoped to sell PJ and buy another pony project and start saving up for my own horse trailer. However, a couple kids at the barn were horse hunting; perhaps the mare would be a good fit for one of them? She sent me a couple videos.

Screw that; I wanted her!! Beautiful lofty floaty trot, perfect for dressage. After selling Marco, all that wonderful confidence I had went out of the window and I forgot how to ride, and had no inclination to get another jumping prospect. The more I semi-schooled dressage with Ben, the more appealing a horse who had some ability for it sounded. After many false starts and delays, I finally kidnapped my sister and we drove an hour to go meet Tuesday. It was a gloomy, rainy day but I was determined to try this horse out, and as soon as possible, with a few other people interested in trying PJ out. The woman trailered Tuesday to a friend's place, where there was a covered round pen I could ride in. Not ideal, but I was excited about this horse and chomping at the bit. She came off the trailer quietly, stood quietly while I tacked her up in her bridle and my saddle, lunged quietly in the round pen, stood relatively quietly while I mounted.

A little history on her: This lady also owned Tuesday's dam, and while out picking up hay one day, saw a very impressive stallion she was told was a Hanoverian. She had her mare covered by him, and voila! Foal!

(Let me just say, this is the first time I've had baby pictures of one of my horses. PJ doesn't count.)

...with much less chrome than she had anticipated, but hey, breeding is a crapshoot anyway. She raised the foal, broke her and put a pretty solid foundation on her, and then stepped back to raise a family of her own. Tuesday had about two years off in the pasture before the woman was ready to get back into it...but hopefully with a horse that suited her more. Which was when she saw PJ's ad and contacted me. For having such a long time off, Tues was a good ride. I was duly impressed. The footing along the rail of the round pen was deep and slick, so I didn't want to ride in it. We pretty much did a 12m circle the whole ride... which was made very exciting by the fact that my saddle wasn't wide enough for her broad back (there's a reason for the redponybaytank handle of this page) and kept slipping. I wanted her. We made plans for Tuesday to come down the next Friday so I could ride her at my barn and have Dear Vet kick the tires, and the woman could try out PJ and hopefully take him home with her.

The night before the exchange, I spent the evening with PJ, cleaning him up and spending a little time with him. I never did bond closely with him, despite his sweet disposition and goofy quirks (my favorite being the way he would stick his leg out in front of him and plop it down on the ground, watching himself with fascination as if to say, I have a FOOT!!) A sadness, however, creeped over me, and I told Boyfrand as he helped me spoil my grown up Baby Butter, that I didn't think I wanted to do this again; it was too hard.

Everything went well the next day. Dear Vet was a little concerned that Tues might be an IR horse, so I would have to watch her diet carefully. She also had a bit of a contracted heel in her RF and flexed a little off on it; Dear Vet put her at a .5 on the scale. She warned me that as a resale, any vet would pick that up and caution a potential buyer. But you know what? I kinda thought maybe I wanted to keep her... I didn't need a Grand Prix horse or a jumper. I wanted a horse that suited me, that I could reteach myself how to ride on. I wanted a horse that I could take to some small local shows and do some dressage classes with.

So, I said a bittersweet goodbye to my grown up weanling. I can hardly put this handsome fellow in the same place as that doofy looking colt, can you?

See ya around, kiddo...

So far, PJ is doing well in his new home. She also is giving him time to grow up before putting him to work, but what she has asked of him so far, he has taken in stride. He now lives close to where my dad lives, so hopefully I can go visit him soon.

And as for me...a new phase was starting.

Mighty Mighty Marco

I blame Marco for me becoming absolutely pony crazy. If you were to dangle a cute Arab and a cute pony in front of my nose, I would of course choose the Arab, but only if I could squeal over and smooch on the pony for a solid ten minutes first. When I decided I wanted a project, something I could learn a bit about training on, something that would make me spend more time in the saddle than I was currently doing, my BO said, "Well, Kim has Marco still." I had no idea who Marco was, and I thought to myself, "What a god AWFUL name!" BO had wanted Marco for her own fleet for a few months, but he was seven years old and still a stallion, not broke, and she just didn't have a place in her lesson program for such an undertaking. She drove me out to see him one day and pointed to a small red pony in a pasture and said, "That's him."  Oooh, bag him up!!! He was adorable.

He belonged to a lady my BO had gotten a few horses from. The lady had a pretty good eye for what would make a nice hunter, and when she got something, she would call BO. Marco had supposedly had 30 days put on him when he was younger, but was mostly used as a teaser stallion by a local vet. However, he was eating his head off and pretty much useless, so his owner had decided sell him, or send him to auction. She told me if I gave her $250, he was mine. SOLD! I arranged for him to have a PPE and get gelded the next week. The vet suggested that a day or two post-castration would probably be a good time to try to get on him and see what he remembered, as his crotch would surely be too sore to pull any hijinks.

He vastly underestimated Marco's spunk. This is as close as I got to doing anything productive with him, and even getting the saddle (demon death saddle which never saw daylight after this, as it obviously didn't fit) on him was a trial. He saw me coming with it and ran from me like I was a mountain lion. For twenty minutes. In a round pen. "Sore" and everything. What had I gotten myself into? Leading him through the barn, past the one other horse in there, a mare about two minutes from having a foal pop out of her, I suddenly had a handful of prancy, screechy, hot-brained pony stallion, and I thought, "Maybe this was a bad idea."

I went out of town to visit my sister in CA for a week, and when I came back, BO's husband and I went to pick up the pony. The property was up a steep hill and there was no way we were pulling the trailer into the drive, so we had to lead him down and try to load him on the road. I thought for sure he would never load...but he merrily climbed aboard without hesitating. Well, come to think of it, sure! How many times had he been loaded in a trailer to go talk to the ladies with Mr. Vet Guy? He just skipped right on, a sparkle in his eye, "Oh yeah, I know where I'm going!"

I bet he was disappointed. Maybe that's why he made it a point of being difficult to catch...in the small roundpen where we kept him for a few days as quarantine.

Bastard. You are SO FOR SALE...as soon as I catch you.

Looking back, it's hard to believe he was ever so bad. He quickly turned into a delightful, super friendly fellow who honestly never gave me any problems with anything. I spent a lot of time working with him in the round pen, letting him wear a saddle and bridle for him to get used to them (again, supposedly. In my opinion, if he ever truly had the 30 days put on him, some brave person "cowboyed up" and rode the bucks out of him.) One day, after leaning over his back and petting all over his hiney and flanks, I looked at him, thought, "Screw it, he's fine" and hollered for BO, "I want to get on."

Wild man, huh?

The only spook he ever gave me when we were re-breaking him was the first time I leaned my hand out to set my phone on the rail, and boy, he outspun the world champion reining horse, I swear. So we did lots of arm flapping and such for a while until hovering disembodied arms became a non-issue.

He was a scholar. So hum drum about everything, and very pleasant to ride. He took to jumping very well, and after learning to jump on the deer-leaping WunderArab, his nice smooth tuck over a fence was so nice.

He advanced quickly, and my confidence flourished. I could point him at anything, and he would go over it in fine, calm fashion, without unseating me. There was an occasion where my vet, whom I've known a long time and is a very dear friend to me, happened to be at the barn while I was riding him, and I told her she HAD to watch him jump because he was SOOO cute.

That was the first time he ever refused a fence. Three times in a row. The same two foot vertical we had just jumped twice with no issue. Dear Vet walked away chortling, saying, "Oh yeah! He's REAL cute!"

We did run into a problem with the canter. One day, a barn buddy of mine was riding him, and said, "Hey, you know he crossfires behind?" "What? No he doesn't." Sure enough...something had changed. Any time he went through a corner at the canter, his back legs would swap leads, he would paddle awkwardly for a few strides, then change back to normal. The greatest frustration of my life was fixing that. We had the vet check him, a chiropractor work on him, changed saddles three times, changed bits...everything we could think of, we tried it. He showed no lameness, he did it bareback and in every saddle we put on him, and changing bits would help for a while and then he would revert. The chiro found that his sacrum was a little bit sideways. He had had his tail nerved, probably as a youngster when whoever had him thought he might make a nice WP pony, and as a result, he carried his tail hitched to the right a little bit, which changed the muscling and the way it pulled on the skeleton, but it didn't seem to bother him. We eventually figured out that he had a low palate, and the single jointed snaffle I broke him in had cracked him in the roof of the mouth and he was mouth lame. The crossfiring was a form of evasion. We put him in a rubber mullen and eventually a french link, and did a lot of work with accepting the bit and going FORWARD through corners, and he was fixed.

I took him to a couple hunter shows and he did okay; my insecurities and I got in his way a lot, and a green pony can't take control when the rider forgets to ride. We did go to some combined training shows, and we had a BLAST.

 

Riding a cross country course on him was the most fun I've ever had. The thrill of it was like being on a good roller coaster, as one of the riders at my barn put it. The first time I turned him loose in that big open field, I thought, "I could do this forever." He never stopped. The only problem was the water trough jump, and to be fair, he did jump... or rather, do a strange flail through the air NEXT to the trough. So maybe he didn't get a golden star on that particular obstacle.

We had a good time. He was a star whenever I took him somewhere; totally quiet and chilled out, and more interested in mugging my sister for whatever she happened to be eating, and endearingly resting his chin on her shoulder and gazing at her adoringly when she would ignore his attempts. God, I miss him.

Wonderful, wonderful animal.

We were fearless. The jumps started going up. We were invincible. I know it's silly, but in the movie Troy, Brad Pitt makes a speech and it always makes me think of Marco. "My brothers of the sword...I'd rather fight beside you than any army of thousands. Let no man forget how menacing we are, we are lions! Do you know what's there, waiting beyond that course? (Um, beach) Immortality! Take it, it's yours!" (Great, now I want to watch Troy.) That was my pep talk before every show, every time I pushed myself to be bigger with this pony.

He always took care of me. He never failed to land me safely on the other side of the fence, no matter how badly I set him up, no matter how much I was flailing around in the saddle or knocking him in the chops. He was honest as the day is long. I don't know what I did to deserve him.

Always kept me safe.

My first time ever doing 2'9"

And then 3'.

Things happened, life changed. I fell off the tractor at the barn and badly sprained my ankle and couldn't ride for weeks. At this point, I had gotten into a serious relationship, and we bought a fixer-upper house and moved in. I was spending more time mudding and sanding sheet rock, painting, and painstakingly pulling tack strips out of the hardwood floor than at the barn working with my pony. His beautifully fit body started to get a bit flabby, and he turned back into a semi-mushy red ponything. I'm sure he didn't mind, he loved being the boss in charge of eight other geldings who towered over him. In the meantime, I finally truly put him up for sale, knowing all along he had been meant as a resale, knowing that I no longer had the time to do his talent and willingness justice, and it was my responsibility to find him a good, loving home who could use him.

He was still a stud muffin. Marco and Benny were good friends, at least. I like to think that they somehow knew they had something in common; me. They were like brothers.

They were my family, my pride and joy.

The last picture of the three of us together.

Several people came to try him out. None of them seemed a good fit. One family came to try him out that was absolutely effing NUTS, and I never would have given my pony to those people after meeting him. A trainer from TN tried him out the same day and loved him, but thought his canter was still a bit strange and that the kids would have a hard time riding it. She also expressed concern that his approach to a fence and the way he jumped were so easy going that the kids would never know when he was going to take off. Her daughter rode him first, and then she got him and within five minutes commented, "God, he has so much presence, I can see it from up here." They passed on him. The next week, I got a call from a pretty big name trainer in our area who wanted to look at him for a client coming from NY. I was SO EXCITED. Marco had made the big time! Meester Big Shot came to watch me ride him, and set up a course ranging 3' to 3'3". I had jumped him single fences of that height, but never a full course, and certainly never a 3'3" oxer! BO was watching, and she said the first corner we came around towards a fence, my eyes were as big as saucers. But he never stopped, and hauled my insecure ass over every single one of those fences. Meester Big Shot said they would send for him in a few days. When I called to confirm they were picking him up on the day we had scheduled, they informed me that their client had fallen through and they wouldn't be coming to get him after all. The day before, a family from Georgia had called me about his ad, and I told them he was supposed to leave for trial the next day. As soon as I hung up with Meester Big Shot, I called the family from GA and they came the next day. Their daughter was a beautiful nine year-old girl whose last pony, an elderly freebie, had passed away eight months prior and they hadn't found anything that clicked yet. Within ten minutes, it was obvious they had finally found their pony. I couldn't have done any better for him. They owned their own stable, the girl took regular lessons, and spent five minutes in the crossties after her ride trying to convince me how much she would love him. "And I'll brush him every day, and clean his stall, and take care of him, and give him the day off after every show..." Honey, you can HAVE him. I dropped his price a full grand for them, just because I wanted them to take him so badly. They arranged for a PPE the following week. My time with him drew to a close.

He finally, FINALLY learned to jump a trough.

My last ride on him.

The plan was for them to bring their trailer from GA, take up the highway to a clinic for his PPE, and if he passed, they would just continue down the highway and take him home. Simple enough... except not. I went with them to the clinic to be there for the PPE. He did not flex well. Three legs were absolutely clean; the RH flexed 4-4-3-3-2. Everything else was perfect; good eyes, lungs, heart, etc...but that RH was slightly worrisome to the vet. There was no swelling, heat, injury, anything. The vet told them he could radiograph but he didn't think he would find anything; perhaps the pony had tweaked his ankle in the pasture and would be fine in a few days. So the parents and I agreed on a ten day trial period. They'd go ahead and take him home, give him a few days off, and then re-flex him and we would go from there. Marco, however, decided for the first time in history dating back to the time of dinosaurs, that there was no way he was getting back on their trailer. I was so embarrassed and mad at him. Finally, with the help of a few vet assistants, he loaded up and they drove away with my pony. I couldn't even cry; I was upset with him and halfway expected to have him back in a week and a half.

Especially since they started having problems with him. He wouldn't stand still for their daughter to mount up, was unsettled, and... one day Mom sent me a text saying, "Well, I guess Marco swims."

Beg pardon?

The way their pastures are set up, there are two of them that are divided by a single fence, with a little pond in the middle. Being wise, the family put Marco in a pasture by himself, with their only other resident horse in the other pasture. Marco finally got so desperate for a buddy that he SWAM through the pond to get to the other gelding, and there he was in the morning. Mind you, this was November and relatively chilly. Desperate times... 

Meanwhile, the trainer from TN who had passed on Marco called me and said that she had been thinking about him, and would like to buy him after all. I told her he was currently on trial, because the family who'd wanted to buy him had him vetted and he didn't do well, but that chances were, he'd be coming back because he was being terrible and I would let her know.

Well...he settled in, and their trainer flexed him ten days later, and they told me to cash the check. Daughter was so in love with him already and they were already a team. My pony had a new home. 

It didn't hit me for weeks. I had already started looking at new projects to bring along, and had found a nice gray Arab from the esteemed Talaria Farms in Newnan, GA, and had focused all of my plans on this new boy, to keep my mind off of what I was really doing.

The nice gray Arab, my dream horse, failed his PPE and I had to take him home. I cried the whole way to GA and back. The next night, while Boyfrand was working, it hit me. Not only had I had to give up my dream horse, the fancy Arab I'd had my heart set on and had poured all of my thoughts into, to keep from being upset over Marco, but my pony was gone. My sweet, dear, chubby cheeked, pudgy, willing baby was gone and he wasn't coming back. I had found him an incredible home with wonderful people, but he was gone. I spent the evening sobbing hysterically. I still can't realllly look at pictures of him and think hard on the partnership I had with him, and his wonderful, silly goofy personality without tearing up and crying a little. I had tried so hard to not get attached to him, knowing this day would come. I dubbed him Ugly Pony as a way to brush him off in my mind. The problem is, he started answering to Ugly Pony. You could stand in front of him and go Marco, Marco, Marrrco, MARCO until you were blue in the face, and he'd never look at you. Utter Ugly Pony, and he would lift his head immediately. Yeeeees? OH! He was so cute. I fell for him fully. Selling him was like ripping an integral piece of my soul out.

I am, however, so thankful to the family that took him into their hearts and gives him the very best care, and all of the love in the world. The little girl is doing great things with him. She was just on cavaletti and crosspoles when she got him, and is already doing 2'6" with him. They send me updates and pictures sometimes. Last month, they went to their first GHJA show and got champion and reserve champion. What a brilliant team they are. I am so proud of him. He will teach this little girl so much, and will always be her greatest memory.

Hopefully this is the hardest post I will ever have to make.