Teachers Part 5 - Abby

(this is Steph on Abby, from her website. The link says it's at Fair Hill... looks more like King Oak to me.)

Abby was one of Steph's homebreds. When I first started riding her, she was not very strong, and incredibly locked up on the left rein. She had the tiniest little pony trot when she'd first start out, and occasionally she'd pull so hard on the left rein that I thought my arm was going to fall off. However, Abby taught me to let go. When she started hauling on my arm like a team of oxen, I learned to just release the contact and apply leg to keep her straight. She was also a fantastic horse for no-stirrup work [most of the time]. Once I learned her trick on the left rein, I actually quite enjoyed her on the flat, and was able to really work on myself when I rode her, because mostly, she was quite lovely and super uncomplicated. Even more fun was jumping Abby.
Abby inherited her mother's clever, clever jumping style. She would jump from anywhere and save your butt if need be. She was also incredibly quiet and steady to the fences, which really allowed me to sort out how I was tackling my rounds. The only tough part with her was that she naturally liked to go around a bit low in front, so I really had to pay attention through the turns and bump her up to get the balance right. This was especially good for me, as I was pretty good at the "post-jump coffee break", where I would just kind of let the horse cruise for a few strides. I think I got into this habit because of the fact that Dusty and Kess didn't need much management between fences. Dusty needed half-halts before the fences, and Kess was one of the most uncomplicated horses to jump in the world. On him, I mostly just had to not screw up and keep a positive attitude.
I'm not sure that I've mentioned it on here before, but Abby is also the horse who wrecked my ankle while I was in Florida. We were cross-country schooling at Rocking Horse, and I was riding miss Abby. Of course, spring was in the air, and everyone was feeling a bit cheeky. Abby was feeling like a herdbound cow. Steph asked me to go jump a little [tiny] log as a warm up, and it was away from the group of horses to my right. Well. Abby decided that she did not want to jump that log because her friends were over there!!!!!! The first time, she just kind of muscled through my outside aids and ran right. The second time, I closed the right door hard, and in response, Abby dropped that right shoulder and then, somehow bolted to the right. Well, I apparently continued in a forward trajectory and flew over her right shoulder, but my right ankle got stuck in the stirrup [this is a guess] and I tweaked it as I fell over. I then somehow fell underneath her, and she kicked me square in the face with a hind leg as she hurdled me. I just remember my first thought being "my face!" and clutched where she kicked me as I tried to get up. However, as soon as I got up, I fell right back down because I was not load-bearing on my ankle. At this point, Abby was reaking havoc around Rocking Horse, and if memory served, someone else then got dumped and we had two loose horses.
Poor Sitka had to sit on the trailer all day for nothing because Abby was my first ride and there was no one to get on Sitka later.
As you may have guessed, Abby was, occasionally, a problem child. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

1. Abby and I were out for a hack with Jesse and Abby's brother, Abbett. As we walked down the road, a dog started barking at us. Abby did not like dogs. She started to get a little worried, and stopped in the middle of the road. As I was trying to coax her forward, a car started coming down the road towards us. Abby lost her marbles, went straight up in the air, and ran across the road on her hind legs at the car. She then hit the ground again, and did the rest of the hack on a looped rein.

2. Steph was sitting on Abby in the dressage warm-up at Rocking Horse. She had just finished her ride and was waiting on me to go. Well, Abby apparently decided that she'd had enough, and did a lovely capriole across the warm-up arena. She was asked to leave.

3. Steph and I were out for a hack, going to the farm next door for a jump school. Steph was on Abby and I was on Sitka. I'm not sure what happened, but when we hit the driveway, Abby took off, and I just remember Steph turning around in the tack, laughing, and saying "I can't stop her!"

For as terrible as she was as a young'un, though, she is now going INtermediate with her new owner.

Teachers Part 4 - Roo

Roo was Steph's Intermediate head case horse. In all of my years before Roo, I thought I knew how to really sit and finesse a canter. This was not true. Not at ALL true. The first time I asked Roo to canter, we were careening around the 20 meter circle like a runaway train. Stop. Start over. Adjust body. Don't ask for canter, just think it. Pull in a breath and lift the inside hip. Ok. Now let the canter pour into your hand without letting it escape. Ok. We're balanced! Now we're getting quick, on two wheels. Tighten through the lower abs. Slight hold in the lower back. Catch the energy. Redirect. Back to balance. Whew!
This was our endless cycle. I very quickly learned the fine art of keeping Roo balanced on four wheels in the canter. It was a wonderful feeling.
Roo also taught me about half-pass. Once I figured him out, Roo was incredibly fun to ride on the flat. However, I never caught on to the "fun" of Roo over fences. He actually kind of horrified me over fences, and after a few times over grids on him, I begged off ever jumping him again. This was because you basically had to ride him backwards to the fences or he jumped like crap. And even when you rode him backwards, he still always felt frenzied. It wasn't fun in any sense of the word for me.
Aside from being a great dressage teacher for me, Roo was also a pretty cool, super weird horse to be around. He weaved so much and so hard that the wood floor in his stall had two dents in it from Roo's hooves. In the mornings, if he had to wait to go out, he would stand there weaving faster and faster until we could take him outside. Talk about a neurotic boy. When Steph and I were in Florida, I hurt my ankle and ended up on crutches. When I went out to the barn, I learned how Roo earned that name. His eyes grew as big as saucers when he saw the crutches, and his ears pricked so far forward that they almost touched. He looked pretty much like this:

It was pretty adorable!
Speaking of adorable, during our trip to Florida, we often had the horses sleep out in the field at night. I mean, the weather was so nice, they deserved to enjoy it! Well, one morning, Steph and I padded out to the barn at dawn, as usual, and as the sun peeked over the horizon, through the mist we saw Roo and Kess, curled up and sleeping together in the sand near the pasture gate. To this day, I wish I had gotten a picture of that.
Anyway, while we were in Florida, Roo found a new person. It was a girl from Mississippi who got along brilliantly with him, and Steph was finally able to sell him. The girl absolutely adored him, and we were all happy to see him go to such a great new family. Unfortunately, round about a year later, maybe a little more, I was talking to Steph and asked about Roo. Turns out that he colicked pretty terribly and had to be put down. I think he was only 14 or 15. It still makes me sad to think about that happening to poor Roo, but at least we know he was with a family who loved him very much when he died. Thank-you, Roo! You are missed!

Teachers Part 3 - Delaney

Delaney was in training at Steph's when I arrived to be a working student. He was an adorable 14.2 hand Connemara pony with some of the worst ground manners I'd ever seen, but for as obnoxious as he was on the ground, I very quickly grew to love him under saddle. Delaney and I taught each other. I taught him about cross-country fences, big gymnastic grids, and not being a crazy, spooky jerk on the flat. He taught me that a grown person on a pony had better never anticipate the fences, because there isn't really any neck to jump up, and you're probably going to throw that pony's balance off. He also taught me that ponies are incredibly fun, and that even when that jump at the end of the grid is over said pony's head, the two of you will be just fine if you just keep coming.
Delaney was one of those horses who is brave as can be over fences, but thinks everything he walks/trots/canters by is going to eat him. And it's going to eat him every time he goes by it. I probably don't have to tell you that sometimes this made me want to kill him. I distinctly remember one lesson where Steph had me cantering for a solid 10-15 minutes straight because we weren't allowed to stop until Delaney stopped shying at the barrels when we cantered past. Eventually he did stop, but I think he was just tired. What all of that excessive spooking taught me, however, was how to "ride the spook". I tend to do this with Dee, too, who is a bit of a boredom spooker. To "ride the spook", I would simply engage Delaney in some other activity. These were usually lateral in nature. For instance, when he was engaged in a shoulder-in while passing the barrels, he couldn't simply drop to the inside and shy away from them. Instead, he had to focus, focus, focus. These made our rides pretty interesting, because we were hardly ever just "trotting around".
Above, I mentioned Delaney's atrocious ground manners, but saying they were bad doesn't do it justice. I was one of the only people in the barn who liked him, because I knew how cool he was to ride. The girls who just handled him on the ground? Well... his nickname was "Looney". This was because occasionally at least once a week, when you least expected it, he would just... leave. And when he decided to do this, no force on earth could stop him (except once, when he tried to leave a stall and one of the girls somehow managed to react quickly enough to slam all of her weight against him while he was leaving and essentially pin him in the stall door). One day, I was getting him ready to show to a potential buyer. As I was grooming him (in his stall), he suddenly decided it was time to leave. He bowled straight past me, out of the stall, around the corner, down the aisle, and into the paddock attached to the barn. I was not happy. I caught him, yelled at him, and had no sooner gotten him into his stall when he wheeled around and left again, ripping the lead rope out of my hand and hitting the cement aisle in such a frenzy that as he tried to two-wheel it around the corner to gallop down the aisle, he slipped and fell over, got back up and went careening out into the paddock. He was fine, and after that he stood nicely to be tacked up. The bad part? The potential buyers walked in just as he took his second little romp. Needless to say, Delaney also taught me hyper-vigilence.
I would like to throw in (to show you how awesome this pony was to ride) that the clients who watched him being such a fool on the ground were the ones who bought him. They're still together. Actually, I saw him at Riga Meadow a few years back, which you can read about here.

Teachers Part 2 - Sprinkles

(My mom and I were taking christmas photos that day, and of course he was black with mud. How he found a mud puddle in all that snow is beyond me, but I think the photo came out ok.)

I was probably 9 when I met Sprinkles. He was a naughty fleabitten gray pony, and his owner didn't ride him very often. As it turned out, they were looking for someone to lease him. Naughty or not, I leapt at the chance to have a horse of my "own". Surprisingly, Sprink and I got along pretty well. He was super fun on the flat, and while he was a little devious over fences, he taught me a whole lot about sheer determination, and when he was good, he was very good.
I don't think I've ever fallen off of a horse as much as I fell off of Sprink at the beginning. He was a dirty stopper over fences, and I was woefully unprepared. He also had a very nasty little trick where he would stop, drop his shoulder as if he was going to spin, then change his mind and jump. Actually, strike that. I don't think he changed his mind. I think his plan was to jump all along, but he had to be naughty about it. That little trick caught me out constantly when we first partnered up. Eventually, though, I learned my lesson and started really riding to the fence, and not leaning up his neck when I thought he should take off. This allowed me to sit down and ride to the base of the fence. Of course, even this didn't always work.
I'll never forget the day that I was doing a jump school, and I was cantering up to the barrels, which were set up right next to the hay bales. That naughty pony cantered up to the barrels, and instead of taking off, he ducked to the right and leapt over the hay bales instead. He was quick, he was clever, and he was apparently pretty lazy. I mean, that was a pretty dirty trick just to be able to jump a little lower. However, I stayed with him that time. The next time we cantered up to the barrels, I closed the right door hard and gave him a thump with my whip before the jump. Over we went. Take that, pony.
Sprinkles also taught me to sit quietly. Well, I shouldn't say that. I guess he didn't teach me to sit quietly as much as he forced me not to STOP sitting quietly. One of the reasons that Sprink and I got along was because I could sit on him without bouncing around, or being too handsy. He HATED people bouncing in their seat or hands, and he retaliated against that sort of bad rider behavior. He had been going really well for me, so when I went on vacation, I asked if maybe Bon could use him once or twice just to keep him working while I was away. Well, when I got back, I found out he had been used once, and had caused some problems. Apparently, the girl who rode him bounced a little, and Sprink took off. Of course, when he took off, she bounced more, at which point he said "enough is enough" and bucked her off. Bad Poneh. But, you gotta hand it to him, he was a very strict teacher who wanted you to practice perfect. I still think that he was a good stepping-stone into my life of riding and loving the "hot" Thoroughbreds. (I don't really think most of them are hot-heads... sensitive? sure, but for the most part, I think that rather than being hot-headed, most of them are sensible and smart with a propensity for being hyper-sentitive and/or easily bored - at which point, they get "creative")
I will add that he never outgrew that pet peeve. After I got Sierra, Sprinkles' owner sold him to Bon as a lesson horse. I think she figured that he had gotten over the bad behavior, because he and I were doing really well together (I just outgrew him, he was probably only 14 hands). He went on to break one of my friends' arms. Pony don't play the bouncing game.
In sum, Sprinkles was yet another horse that I met towards the end of his life, but he was a great teacher and a better friend. He was the first horse that I could kind of call my own, and I will always love him as if he were truly my first pony.

Amazing...

I just wanted to quickly comment on how wonderful people can be...

I am friends with CANTER KY on facebook, and tonight I saw a shared post from a CA rescue. It was a chestnut TB gelding named Scat Thief who was in a sad state and sitting in an auction lot in CA. Over the next few hours, I watched people rally and raise enough money for the rescue to purchase and support this horse for a year, just to make sure he was safe. I will admit that I even chipped in what little bit I could to help him. He is safe and sound now. I just wanted to post this because it warms my heart that so many people who had never met this horse would jump in and help just to keep him from meeting a potentially terrible end.

Teachers Part 1 - Jasmine

I've spoken a lot on here about my old horses. About Sierra, Dusty, Kess, and [obviously] this blog's namesake, Tango. However, they are not the only horses who have taught me over the years. So, for the next few weeks, I plan on spotlighting the other important horses that I've encountered over the years. To do that, I'm going back. ALLLLLL the way back. First up, we have Jasmine.

(Jasmine is the black pony - with little me on board)

She was a big pony [and let's face it, at 7, I just flat out thought she was big], probably somewhere around 14.2 and built pretty solidly. She was also a lazy pony, and a lot of people didn't like her all that much, because unless you let her know, quite clearly, that "WE ARE GOING FORWARD TODAY", she would barely budge. She also farted ALLL the time. We all used to get a kick out of that. But, despite the laziness and the gassiness, I grew to love that pony. I learned very quickly that the first time she protested going forward in a lesson, one authoritative thwack with the whip cured the problem for the rest of the day. She was a smart pony that way - ridden in several lessons a day, she saved energy wherever possible. You had to mean business if you wanted her all.
Once I learned her trick, she was a blast to ride. She was the first horse that I ever had a lot of confidence jumping with, and while everyone else wanted to ride Pierre, the little fleabitten gray Arab who was known around the barn as the "best pony jumper", I wanted Jasmine. This was because once Jas and I came to an understanding about the forwardness, she was a pretty impressive jumper. While Pierre went like a hunter - long and rhythmical - Jasmine was more like a jumper - a bit rounder, a bit more up and down in her canter - and I LOVED that. I still love that. In anything I ride. Maybe she's why.
Jasmine was also the first horse that I "went cross-country" with. I put that in quotes because in fact, I just cantered her around a hilly field, jumped a little log in the woods and a ditch at the reservoir. But it was a start! And we did it a lot!
Jasmine and I were also pretty darn good at gymkhana games. Sit-a-buck? No problem, she was round and super easy to sit. Slow-canter? She LOVED to slow-canter! We even rocked the jumper derby. The funny part was that everyone thought I was crazy picking jasmine for a speed jumping class, but we put in a valiant showing. I couldn't tell you if we won or not, but we didn't come in last [time-wise], and we kept all the jumps in the cups.
That pony taught a lot of people to ride over the course of her long life, and I'm glad to say that she taught me, too. I wish I had gotten the chance to see that pony in her prime, because I'll bet she was amazing. As it was, I found her in the twilight of her life. I was around for her retirement, and for her death. For that pony, though, death wasn't something we needed to mourn. She was probably 25 or 30, and she had been with the same person for almost her whole life. I think that she even had a foal at some point. To say that she lived a full life would be an understatement. To say that she lived a good life would be accurate.