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.
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.
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