Ramblings in Lieu of Anything Important

Generally, a lack of blogs would make a person guilty of being lazy, but I think in this case, since the whole point of this is to track my progress with The Horse, it just means I'm a lazy rider. I rode Too in BO's Wednesday lesson a week or two ago, and usually when she lets me sneak my horse into one of her classes, I leave after the flat half of the lesson. On this particular day, she asked if I wanted to stay and jump a bit. I could feel myself get a bit green around the gills, but considering the class consisted of an age group seven to fifteen years younger than me, and the jumps were sized accordingly (as in, for the hardcore seven-year old and stoic ten year-old girl in the class), my pride made me stay. It's hard to maintain a good image when you run squealing from a two foot vertical with a step rail. I did make one concession to utter wimpdom and verify to BO that I was going to trot the jump. Every time.

First jump: the aforementioned two foot vertical with a step rail. When it was our turn in line, we proceeded to pick up a lofty, green dressage horsey trot around the ring to our fence. Approach fence, ears confusedly pricked forward, yet not too bad. At least, we didn't knock the whole thing down, and barely touched the pole. As we cantered scurrily away, I called back to BO: "Is she as awful as I think she is?" "Nah, that's actually all right!"

Second jump: same vertical. CLUNK. Nuff said.

Third jump: same. Less clunking, but an alarming glimpse of flailing knees from the corner of my right eye. BO hesitantly saying that "she just needs to learn to use her butt more."

Fourth jump: By this point, Too IS using her butt...at least for our anti-climatic trot to the new jump. She is thrusting off of her hindquarters with every stride, and beautifully light in my hands and well rounded... until I aim her at the actual fence, which is another jump with a steprail before it, this time a low ladder type jump with a plain white pole over it. Maybe a hair over two feet, but not much. Picture, if you will: the shrimpy human astride a snorty mare who makes it obvious with her progressively more airborne trot and approach that signifies she is actually in a western arena running poles that she does not agree with this. Doubtful trainer off to the side offering, "Eyes up and leg on. Um, not so much that she rockets off. Good. Now... Whoops!" as the mare, still in the faraway western arena, trots the steprail and does a fabulous rollback just in front of the jump. Doubtful trainer pauses to remove top rail. Snorty McPranceypants approaches again. Trots the pole, pauses in midair and...CLUNK. Rinse and repeat. Or rather, run away, and THEN rinse and repeat if desired.

We've been working on it.

I don't want or need a jumping horse (as I proved to myself by muttering to the horse on every approach, "You are Marco you are Marco you are Marco oh my god a jump YOU ARE MARCO!" to keep from panicking), but it seemed to help sit her back for her flat work, so we'll do a bit of cross training on low fences to help. Not to mention developing a little bit more trust, instead of the mare thinking I'm a moron for aiming her at solid things like I don't have eyes or sense, and her silently thinking it's a good thing she's got all those legs.

I rode her with a friend this past Friday and had a pretty good ride. We sort of just poked around, but it was very fun, relaxing poking around. I intended to drag Boyfrand out to the barn Saturday to actually get some work done and coerce him into taking some new riding pictures. Unfortunately, we got caught up doing all kinds of adult things like buying the last book in the Hunger Game series, eating Hardees breakfast at 10:45, and buying and setting up a dining room table to replace the plastic folding one we've had since we moved into the house a year and a half ago.

So on Sunday, when I ended up being at the barn an hour later than usual, and the new boarder was riding her horse, I figured I might as well go grab Too out of her pasture and have a pleasant 15 minute hack before going home.

Isn't that ALWAYS when the bad rides happen? When you decide you just want to play? Something ALWAYS happens that, by god, you are going to FIX before you give up! Horse won't pick up the right lead, or does something that you decide you have to fix so he "doesn't get away with it" and then it just escalates into something far, far beyond your short pleasant hack. About four or five years ago, when Taylor was here, we set up the oldest, crappiest horse trailer BO had at the end of the small ring, hitched to a truck with the gate to the ring opened into the trailer, with Tay's food in the trailer, and he didn't eat unless he got in the trailer. I had come out to ride Ben, for a "short pleasant hack" out in the pasture. Which we had. Fifteen minutes of cheerful moseying about in the field...after which I rode him through the gate, through the small ring which was currently empty, and tried to take him past the horse trailer so I could ride around behind the barn to where his stall is.

Forty-five minutes later, Benny still would not go past the damn trailer and I was crying and cussing and Benny was doing airs above the ground and galloping in reverse and cussing as well. But damn it, he was going to walk past the &*^%@! trailer!! Oh no, no he wasn't. I finally dismounted and led him up to it, at which point he dropped his sweaty head, sniffed the trailer, said, Oh hey you're a horse trailer, Mom can I eat now? And walked away cool as a cucumber.

Sunday was one of those days. I should know by now that she's usually going to be a pain when she's absolutely quiet in the crossties. Generally she wiggles a bit, nickers at the horses in the pasture, and that's fine, she rides well those days. But if she stands there, still as a statue and absolutely mum...that means she is concentrating, she is storing up all of her energy to make my life miserable, and I should maybe have a stiff drink before I mount up. Luckily I can count those rides on one hand at this point, but then again, I've only had her since January. How's that for optimism?

She was not with me. She was anywhere but with me. BO's husband was driving around in her pasture in the golf cart, and that was the thread that unravelled her. She was so fractious, overreactive, and nervous about her friends that I rode her for over an hour until she gave me her attention for more than a split second, at which point I dismounted and called it a day. There may or may not have been a lot of shoulders and haunches in before that point, I'm not saying. I am quite certain she used muscles she didn't even know she had. Hopefully the lesson she learned from Sunday was to not be a bitch to the human on Sundays, because the human has no where to be on Sundays and has all the time in the world to work the hiney off of a bitchy cow.

So yesterday, I decided to lunge her in side reins to work her a little bit, since I didn't have time for a ride, unless it was a short ride, and I just covered the probable path THAT would have taken...I started her out floppy loose and slowly worked her up to a bit of contact, which she semi-accepted at the end of a 15 minute session. I don't know that she learned anything, but I learned that it would be interesting to see her in a sulky race against Standardbreds.

This doesn't nearly, NEARLY, do it justice.

However, Friday is my birthday and hopefully I can coerce SOMEONE into snapping some shots of us this weekend.

(P.S. I don't want to give off the impression that I'm not happy with Too; chances are she is in heat or something equally girly and ridiculous, and no one ever cares about her feelings, and she really just wanted some chocolate or something, blah blah, I can totally relate. Generally I enjoy her and I understand she will have her days and hey, the golf cart WAS quite rattley and for all she knew, might have eaten her friends without her to protect them.)

In other news, Fiona went back to the horse trader last week. Turns out, the situation was not going to work out with her being a beginner lesson pony (saw that one coming as soon as she got food into her.) Hopefully HTF (who is one of those ethical horse traders who happens to find horses in crappy condition) can place her in a suitable home where she will be much enjoyed. And hopefully she will keep her name because it is the shit.

Too is getting shiny and buff:

Psst: Bye, Feefs!

Is an absolute goofball:



No really, I watched her make this face in the pasture for five straight minutes today.

Is not interested at all in making friends with Ben:

I mean, honestly, could YOU resist him?

Who is unconcerned, because he has been adopted by Dear Vet's ancient Appendix, Bar:

And has a puncture under his left jaw the size of Texas:

Which I panicked over, calmed down, Dear Vet deemed a puncture and started him on antibiotics (which, I would like to brag, he eats out of my hand like candy)

(which, I'm terrified to keep him on too much longer, since antibiotics for a respiratory problem several years ago threw him into two weeks of colicking and me thinking I was going to lose my best friend)

(which, I think he remembers, because he actually started spitting them out today)

And is not impressed with my doctoring attempts, since they involve standing in the death trap crossties. I don't know WHY, but he is petrified of this wash rack. He is okay in any OTHER wash rack, except for one similar to this at the barn BO sold to move to this place. He turns into a scrambling turkey on acid in here, as you can see by the bulging eyes and very offensive posture.

I need a horse whisperer. I don't get it.

And that's all, folks. I'll end with a picture of one of my favorite views in the world.

Of course that's Ben's little nose poking out of there. Too is next to him, but she's just too dark or antisocial to make an appearance.











 

Fee Fi Fo Fum, I'm an Oooogre!

When I was working out the trade between PJ and Too, BO told me that one of her horse trader friends really wanted PJ for her daughter. She knew his breeder and had always loved him. She said she could try to find me a nice Arab or a cute pony similar to Marco, and we could trade. I felt pretty awful about it, but I really wanted Tooey and went through with the trade for the mare. A week or two later, Horse Trader Friend brought a pony out that BO purchased from her to eventually put in the lesson program. She pulled this cute little buckskin mare off the trailer, and while we stood there awkwardly waiting for BO to come out of the house, HTF asked me if I'd "traded PJ off." I awkwardly blabbed that, yes, I had, I'd gotten a chunky little TB cross and we were having so much fun, I was enjoying her, blah blah blah, and HTF eyeballed the cute buckskin pony, and gave me a small, barely discernable smile that could only be described as...smug. Sort of...well, you could have had this cute little buckskin pony if only you had done business with me. In yo' faaace!

I looked at the pony and thought, Crap! I could have had this cute little buckskin pony! 

She was a little puny, a little thin, a little long in the back, six years old and just shy of 14hh, had a horrible haircut that (I am sorry to offend!) many western people seem to do; you know the one. Have scissors, will cut...straight across. And voila! Razor sharp bowl cut! But boy was she cute! BO told me to throw her in the round pen for a minute while she and HTF worked out business. As I was walking her over, she followed me quietly and I was thinking, man oh man I could have HAD THIS PONY! Walked her into the round pen, turned her around and she nearly plowed over me to get back out of the pen. Hey now, rudeypants, don't be an ogre! 

Her name was obvious... Fiona.

You know...

A pretty pretty princess...

Who is an OGRE! (couldn't find a sufficiently ogre-ish picture of Fiona)

For a while, getting Fiona to move forward under saddle was a trial. BO had asked me if I would be willing to ride the pony to get her ready for the kids, and I said of course, I will ride any pony you have! I don't regret having Tooey, but ponies really are so much fun and I missed having a little pony to scoot around on. However, Fiona didn't do much scooting. She sucked back like nothing I have ever ridden before. I would ask for a trot, get a few steps of trot, and then suddenly be on her ears when she hit the breaks. Trot on a few steps, suck back. Trot on a few steps, pin ears, prop, pin ears some more, kick kick kick the pony, grudging trot... Six years old, but still very green and not ever made to go forward off the leg. The first morning I rode her, it was forty-five degrees outside, and when our ride was done, I brought her back into the barn, pulled off my sweater, and dumped ice cold water on my head, and did my best to not black out. I told myself when I rode Too that afternoon, I would throw my arms around her neck and praise her and her forward movement and the lack of asthma attacks I get while riding her. After several rides, I had her moving along and even doing some semblance of a canter.  

Fiona was at our barn two or three weeks when I got the plague from Boyfrand. An entire week is pretty much blank in my memory, except long periods of coughing and sneezing and pounding pressure in my skull. When I came back to work the next week, BO asked me to put in a short ride on Fi. I don't really remember tacking her up; everything was still sort of hazy at this point, but I figured the worst that could happen was the ogre pony took advantage of me and we reverted back to lazy, non-forward for a ride.

While I had been sick, Fi also came down with a tiny cough, and BO had the vet put her on antibiotic pills to squash it before it turned into a full blown respiratory issue. We also had worked up her feed intake, and she was finally being fed enough and was gaining a little weight. The combination of being properly fed and having some medicine wipe out whatever the pony undoubtedly had had in her system when she got to our barn made Fiona feel gooooooooood. Puny, slightly underweight Fiona was pokey and needed a strong ride. Healthy Fiona was forward (mostly) and....bucked.

She almost had me. I was in a daze and not expecting pokey puny Fiona to have any spit in her. I corrected her and we moved on. She was definitely a little sour on the side of the ring near the mares' pasture, and to this day, that is still the side of the ring where she gives me issues. She still throws a buck now and then, but usually her M.O. with me is attempted intimidation. Don't you hate when you're riding a big horse and he pins his ears, bows up his back and snakes his head down? On a tiny horse, it isn't so scary, just annoying. One warning squawk from me and she usually goes on without trying anything, but definitely probes at the boundaries every once in a while. She'll need a lot of wet saddle pads before she's really ready for the lesson program, but now that she actually MOVES, I'm kinda having fun with her.

(Still like my mare better, though)

Typical "you can't make me" moment

Effing sideways AGAIN! She's a cute little mover, though. We're just letting her plug along with her nose in the air for the time being. Starting to work on it a bit more now that she's had her teefs done.

She has the most hilarious ears.

 

   

Somebody Please Come Sit Me On My Horse

And if you could tack her up first, that would be wonderful!

It is so hard to be motivated to ride my own horses after spending all day at the barn caring for other peoples' horses and teaching other people (even miniature ones) how to ride. By the time 530 rolls around and I've chased all the munchkins away, I just want to go home and it's hard to be motivated to catch up Too, tack her up, get something accomplished, and maybe make it home in time to grab something from a fast food joint for supper, take a shower, and fall into bed. Some mornings I'm able to drag myself out of bed early so I can ride before work, but then I'm pooped before my day is halfway through.

I think the lesson in this is that I just have to drink more coffee. Or start taking stimulants.

I'm kidding. I think.

Sometimes I'm lucky and don't have a student on a day when I can ride with BO's lessons. That is usually once a week. I try to get out of bed on Tuesdays to ride in the morning, and always make it on Fridays to ride... But what am I accomplishing riding three days a week? I have got to become motivated if I want things to change. So if any of you have a cattle prod and want to chase me in the general direction of my horse and saddle...

Since I have not ridden but once since my last post, I'll continue my journey with the photos I do have since the last post. Those were beginning/mid February. These photos are March 16. Keep in mind, I'm going to do my best to show a lot of humiliating photos, and be skimpy on the good photos. I want to SHOW myself and all of you what I need to work on...but maybe still throw in a good one in the interest of keeping my self esteem away from the worms.

The things I see that she and I need work on:

Her: Idiot tendencies. Getting fewer and further between as she trusts me more. But she just HAD to make sure this chair was not a North American Mare Eating Serpent.

Me: First and foremost, the thing that makes me want to weep on the floor when I see pictures of me doing it: This godawful chairseat with the archy back and my whole entire butt touching the saddle in places that it should never touch, in the "sit" stage of posting. I do not have this problem while sitting the trot; instead I just look like a defeated wiggly earthworm.

Me: Shoulders down and back, elbows bent and at my sides, thumbs up...you know, the basics. Right shoulder doesn't look too crazy here. Her: The time of plowing through my hands is OVER, biatch!

Me: Speaking of the right shoulder...

That's all fine and dandy; I have been making myself sit straight in the car, rolling my shoulders down and back, and I feel like it's helping my posture regardless. As long as I can remember to keep my legs under me, I think we will be able to fix the trot right sharpish.

Moving on to bigger and more horrifying things... the canter.

THAT. What is THAT? Arched back, crotch a mile in front of my base of support, floaty hands because I feel like I'm being light and speshul with her face... (You, with the cattle prod, you can use it on me for this as well. Just zap me backwards please.)

Must learn to support horse around corners (actually, support horse in general) so she does not drop her shoulder like this.

Twisting? Who, me? What twist?

Her: Work on furthering THIS. This is relatively round and collected for her right now, and I notice I'm riding her better when I am able to get her better collected.

I don't want to be a chicken, I don't want to be a duck, so kiss my butt! *clap*clap*clap*

(This picture refuses to upload the correct way, so screw it)

Sitting marginally better, but still, shoulders, and hands are blocking.

And some miscellaneous areas for improvement:

(Okay, someone tell me how to stop this from happening!)

Dear Seester Photographer Who Is Actually Quite Good For Not Being Horsey (to be known as Seester from here on out): Get the good stuff when I'm not behind things. bahaha

And um...just...don't do a whole lot of this until we are magically better at it. Kay.

That's all for now! Hopefully the next post won't be so utterly pointless. But since I don't have cookies, here is a random Too and I video:





 Marchish



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.