So when I was a child...like most little girls, horses held a certain magical principle for me. I always wanted one and at the very least I would have loved to take riding lessons, but I always got the classic answer from my parents, "Ummm...no. Horses are too much work and too expensive." So I tucked that little heart wish away for a later time and went on with my childhood and growing up. I never really believed that I would one day own a horse (let alone 2 with one on the way)...and somehow that little heart wish was nearly forgotten until I had my own daughter and wife with the same heart wish.
We first got involved with horses because of Cate. We told her that at 7 she could start taking riding lessons. I will admit that I started living vicariously through my daughter. She instantly had this innate sense with the horses and was a natural rider. I found that the more time I spent with horses the more I felt an inner peace when I was with them. They are an instant stress reliever. No matter how bad my day has been a horse can bring me to my center within 3 minutes. I think it has to do with them commanding ALL of your attention. Horses are such intelligent, perceptive animals. They seem to sense everything you are feeling and the great ones will try and put you at ease. Horse relationships are unlike any other relationship I have ever had in my life. Many of them have this innate ablility to know exactly how you are feeling and they are able to calm you if you are open to that. They also expect you to calm them when they are feeling on edge or unsure about what is going on around them. They look to their human to reassure them that imminate death is not right around the corner. So it is give and take. I think they easily teach you to be a more perceptive person.
As Cate got more involved in horses, the more Amy and I began thinking that we should get a horse of our own. At first it started out as a half hearted search, neither of us really believing that we really would end up with a horse of our own. I mean it was really a pipe dream, right? So that half hearted search led us to go and look at a horse we had found on Craigslist. Interesting enough the owner was someone Amy used to work with so we thought, "We can't go wrong here!" We went and looked at Snazzy on a Saturday evening in early May 2008, after the Kentucky Derby where Eight Bells had had the freak accident and had to be euthenized on the track. I was sobbing the entire drive out to look at her. We each rode her. She was quite, not very touchy, and sane. We decided to try her and although I will admit that I did not instantly fall in love with Snazzy, I have grown to love her and her heart of gold. She was instantly more Amy's horse than she ever was mine. I think we ended up purchasing her not necessarily because she was the right fit for us at the time but more because we knew that we could give her better care than her previous owner did. When Snazzy came to us, she was not used to being touched and handled as much as we were touching and handling her. It took us a good year to get her used to being groomed and loved. She has always been a kind horse but could get impatient if she thinks you are taking too long. Snazzy came to us with a respiratory infection that the previous owner had no idea was going on and she hadn't seen a farrier since early February. We knew that we could care for her better and we liked her. Did she turn into the horse that we wanted for Cate? In short, no. In the time that we have had Snazzy we have dealth with lameness and neurologic issues. She has spent more than 1/2 of the last year off from any kind of work. She has been more of a companion than I horse we have enjoyed riding. We have just recently been able to start doing light trail riding with her and she continues to improve. Snazzy loves kids. I think it may have something to do with her past. She seems to feel the innocence of children. I wonder if she was ever mistreated by adults and this is why she prefers children. We can put anyone on Snazzy, no matter their riding experience (or lack there of) and she is always good for them. She is trustworthy. Snazzy's lameness and neurologic problems did lead us however, as we realized that she was not going to be the horse that we had hoped for Cate, to running the numbers to see if we could possibly afford 2 horses. We started looking for a reasonable place to move Snazzy. We had resigned ourselves to the fact that she may never be safe to ride again and she would need to be retired to pasture board where she would just be our pasture pal. While looking for a pasture board for Snazzy, we began our search for another horse for Cate. We resolved to be smarter about our search this time.
Our search lead us to a horse rescue in Mt. Vernon. In today's economy, too many people have lost the rescourses to take care of their horses, therefore, good horses are being left to fend for themselves. Amy and I really liked the idea of getting a horse from a rescue that needed us. I will admitt that we walked into it with a rosey expectation of finding the perfect horse that we could give a good home and would give Cate the opportunity to grow as a rider and competitor. The rescue is where we found Shiloh...or maybe she found us. Catie rode her and she seemed sound with a kind heart and good mind. She was a trained hunter/jumper who had been in a lesson program with her previous owner. After riding her, she followed Cate around the pasture. It was very sweet. We were instantly enamoured with her. Needless to say we were in love. We decided to take a step back however and think about it before arranging her adoption. Shannon (rescuer) called us before we even got out of Mt. Vernon to tell us that she had others who would be looking at Shiloh the following week but she really felt that she belonged with us. In other words, she was pulling on our heart strings and we quickly were deciding that we needed to give her a good home. This is where we loose all rational thinking and begin thinking like 8 year olds, again. We quickly made arrangements for her adoption and transport to our barn. Being a rescue horse had been hard on Shiloh. When we brought her home she was a rack of ribs and emaciated. She was also lame with suspensory injuries. I believe she obtained the injuries at the rescue as she was at the bottom of the pecking order and was often chased and beaten up by the other horses who were there. More than suspensory injuries happened at the rescue...as we have later found. In our quest to get Shiloh healthy and sound, we have spent thousands on vet bills. We were still caught up in the dream of having the perfect horse for Cate to grow with but realized that in order for us to maintain the rescourses to care for our horses, we needed to also move Shiloh out to pasture board with Snazzy. Moving her meant giving up on dreams (at least temporarily) while we let her recover from her injuries and letting our bank account recover as well. This required me rationalizing with my inner 8 year old. Shiloh, however, has become my horse just as instantly as Snazzy had become Amy's...she melts in your hands. She loves to be loved and I love to love her. (WOW...that does sound like an 8 year old.)
Recently, while at Noah's Taekwondo Awards Ceremony, my cell rang and my heart was filled with dread as I saw it was our barn owner calling. Barn owners do not call for social reasons...they call when something is wrong. Alan was calling to say that Shiloh had been brought into the barn for dinner and didn't seem right. She was lying down and was unresponsive and seemed very listless. My heart was in my throat. Of course she was colicing but I was worried none the less. I called out our vet and immeadiately raced out to take care of her. It turns out that my very sweet and loving mare, who is sometimes too smart for her own good, crawled through the electro-braid and gorged herself on the rich green clover on the other side of her pasture causing her to have a bad bellyache. Upon Dr. Chase's arrival, he gave her some banamine and a sedative and proceded to do a physical exam on her. When we adopted Shiloh we promised ourselves that we would not be owners of 3 horses come May of 2010. HA! It turns out we may have gotten more than we bargined for when we adopted our very sweet rescue mare. Upon doing a rectal exam on Shiloh when she coliced, Dr. Chase looks at me and says, "Hiliary, her uterus is huge!" In disbelief, I say, "She can't be pregnant, can she?" It turns out that we will be owners of 3 horses come spring of 2010. My mare is in foal...expected to give birth sometime in March or early April. We started out with the stance that we were not keeping the foal. We would be selling it after weaning because of course we do not have the time or money to raise and train a baby. But I must say that sometimes I see our 8 year old hearts taking over. We have chosen a name for our coming foal...Clover, because without Shiloh having gorging herself of rich, green clover, we would not have found out that she was carrying a baby. Amy wants the foal's show name to be Over Clover...I think she is dreaming of us keeping the baby and training him/her to be a hunter/jumper. I am trying to rationalize my 8 year old heart by telling it that we can't keep the baby because we don't have the time or money...so we'll see what happens.
Yup we'll see :)
ReplyDeleteGood story!