After my first year of lessons I started cleaning water buckets in exchange for an additional lesson each week. Man that was hard work- that barn had like 50 stalls! It was totally worth it :-) When my favorite instructor left, my two barn buddies and I switched barns. I met Mary while volunteering at a summer camp at the farm, and she invited us out to her Aunt Fran's farm. This little farm became my home away from home. Fran let us take our pick of her 4 horses, and it was here that I really learned the joys of galloping in a field, splashing around in a creek on trail rides, and JUMPING! Now I had taken hunter jumper lessons for about 4 years at this point, but the farm's fields still had some cross country jumps set up from Fran's son's riding days, and boy did I have a blast! Fran and her husband even surprised us one day with an awesome wishing well jump they built and painted one weekend. Don't you just love (the good kind of) horse people? I think Fran and her husband really enjoyed watching two middle schoolers fall in love with horses and riding, and they were always willing and eager to teach us everything they knew.
A family friend of Fran's agreed to give me and my little crew dressage lessons. When it became clear I wasn't going to learn much on the little Appaloosa mare I typically rode, my parents said those magic words that every little girl longs to hear, "I think it's time you had a horse of your own." WHAT?!?!?! My dressage instructor pointed us in the direction of another student with a horse for sale, and the next week Jasper was waiting in the paddock for me to try on for size. All it took was one jump over that wishing well, and that horse was MINE. ALL MINE. Jasper was an 11 year-old OTTB. He was super thin and had absolutely no dressage training. But man could that horse jump!
Over the next couple of years, Jasper and I struggled to grasp dressage, and thanks to the endless patience of Jessica and another instructor, we finally managed some decent scores at local dressage shows, combined tests, and HTs.
We didn't show a lot, but I really enjoyed competing.
And then the unthinkable happened. I answered the phone one day after school, and the girl who was in charge of evening feeding said Jasper wasn't moving in his stall. Mom rushed her sobbing, hysterical daughter to the farm. My beautiful boy, my first horse, was gone. I was devastated. High school got hard, I got really good at playing the french horn, college applications were due, and I just didn't ride anymore.
I think perhaps most of us horse people lose our horsey way at some point, but we're never lost for too long. I was in the student rec center one day (I don't do gyms, so this really was fate), and I noticed a flyer advertising tryouts for our IHSA team. I hadn't ridden in two years, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to go to the meeting. Apparently I lost my mind because I ended up at the tryouts that Saturday. I remember standing at the arena rail waiting for the coach to call my tryout group. My heart jumped into my throat as I tried to remember how to check my diagonal, how to make sure I was on the correct canter lead, etc. What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I remember ANYTHING? This was a REALLY bad idea. She put me on a big grey horse, and I honestly don't remember much of anything else past that point about that ride. I guess it wasn't too terrible because, to my surprise, I got a call from the coach a couple days later inviting me to join the team. AWESOME! I'm BAAACCCK!
My first team lesson was a nightmare. I hadn't ridden hunt seat since I was in middle school, my stirrups felt like they were up to my armpits, and my legs felt like Jell-o ten minutes into the lesson. I definitely improved over the next couple of lessons. One day the coach said she wanted to see me in her office after my lesson. Oh crap- well I guess she's kicking me off the team. It was fun while it lasted. Apparently there is only space for about 10 girls to compete, and she wanted me to ride! WOW! But there was a catch. I was on a music scholarship (I wasn't kidding about getting good at playing the french horn), and I was required to play at every football game (which, if you're not a college football fan, are on Saturdays). I wrote an email to the band director as soon as I got home to see if there was any way for me to be excused on show days. I was able to finagle my way out of a couple of games, but in the end, money or the lack-there-of forced me to quit the team.
I refused to get lost again, and I began looking for alternatives. I stumbled upon a therapeutic riding program nearby. I began volunteering with the program, and the director, bless her heart, let me ride all of the little problem ponies. I just love ponies. Graduation came, and thankfully, I landed a job. I found a similar therapeutic riding program and volunteered for a while, but I decided I wanted to ride. I mean really ride. So I Googled and a week later ended up atop one of the farm's thoroughbred school horses. By the end of the lesson, we were jumping a small course. That's what I'm TALKING about!
This went on for about 5 months and was all fine and well, but I wanted to ride all the time. I thought about riding when I wasn't riding, and I had this insane urge to pull a mane on rainy days. I decided I would look into leasing a horse at my lesson barn. After a horrific near-lease experience, I decided it was high time I had a horse of my own. HAH! That was funny. Or was it? After looking at farm websites in my area to figure out how much it would cost to board a horse in a pretty big city, I broke out my Excel spreadsheet budget and moved things around. Over. And over. And over again. Well, technically I could afford it. I kept playing around with the idea in my head, and I finally decided to allow myself to look at Craigslist and some Thoroughbred adoption websites. I knew I wanted another Thoroughbred, particularly an OTTB. Of course I didn't have the experience to retrain an OTTB myself, but I certainly wasn't in any hurry to be in the show ring any time soon, and I definitely wasn't too proud to enlist the help of a professional. Good, so that was settled. I looked, and I looked. I came across a thoroughbred adoption group in my area. I called and explained that I was an amateur rider looking for a SANE event prospect. Oh, and the horse must enjoying grooming and oodles and oodles of attention. She gave me the rundown of the guys and gals, but no one really caught my eye. One day I came across a sweet looking chesnut on her site. I immediately called to inquire, and he had glowing ride reviews. And he likes attention. This guy could definitely be a possibility. I scheduled an appointment to visit him the following week.
I loved him. Frosty was a little thin, but he had a nice animated trot and an awesome rocking chair canter. He was a dream to ride, and I'm sure I had a big dumb smile on my face when I hopped off. The staff let me mess around with him after our ride, and when I turned him out for the night he walked away, turned around, and walked right back over to me. I knew I wanted this guy to come home with me. And so he did. A week later Frosty (or Finn as I had decided to call him) rolled up to my new farm. I was waiting to greet him with my shiny new halter and lead rope (I went a little nuts on Dover.com).
As I drove home that night, I couldn't help thinking, "what did I just do?" Fran and crew had always been there helping me along the way with Jasper. I was new to the horse scene in my new town and hadn't developed one of those relationships yet. I didn't know what I should be feeding him, if and what kind of supplements he needed, how he should be shod. Oh dear. Maybe I was in over my head. Time to panic. WAIT wait wait a minute. I'm a scientist. I didn't jump into this without ironing out every detail. I had searched high and low to find this farm- the farm with no drama and an owner/trainer willing to work with me and my new boy on everything from training to nutrition. I already had a dressage/jumping instructor lined up for when the time came. I crunched my numbers over and over again. Here goes nothing, so time to be excited! Stay tuned, share your thoughts, advice, stories- Finn and I need all the help we can get!
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