SFTS Hop: Heart Horse

Jenn from Stories from the Saddle wants to know about our heart horse. Or, more specifically, she asks: Do you currently have your "heart horse"? What makes a "heart horse" to you? If you don't own a horse, have you ever leased a "heart horse"? 

This is always a difficult question for me to answer. Like others have said, choosing favorites can be hard and I try to find lovable things about most of the horses I have ridden (and there have been lots). 

I've also never owned before and Isabel is my first lease. So the horses in my past were assigned to me for one reason or another, rather than chosen by me. It doesn't make them any less special - but it does change the dynamic and affect how I view the relationships. 

Meaning: I've very much learned to 'love the one I'm with.'

That said, a few stick out over the years. And sadly I have almost no pictures of them, let alone of me riding them. All these photos were taken before the advent of the ubiquitous cell phone camera. Perhaps this is why I'm such a picture junkie now? 

doesn't get much better than a picture of a picture, right? #meta

Anyways, Snowy was a sensitive appy mare from the first barn where I learned to ride - the super isolated place where beginner lesson students rode single file behind the 'lead pony.' It was a rite of passage when I became a lead pony rider in high school - and Snowy was my charge (she was used exclusively for this purpose). 

no actual pictures, but my 14 yr old self was apparently quite the illustrative journalist. (see i come by the blogging thing naturally lol. also some things never change: see the 'i want a horse' comment)

I was assigned to lead pony multiple lessons a week, all free saddle time for me. I LOVED it. Snowy was challenging in her own right: flighty and nervous (and yes I totally hit the dirt in front of the up-downers more than once... oops!) - but this was the first time I had regular non-lesson rides on one horse and felt like we developed our own rapport. 

yes this is actually the best picture i have of him. maybe the only picture...

Dancer lived at the same farm and was my last regular lesson horse there. He was an aging TB suffering from a host of issues, including a bad back. He was a very sweet horse that I frequently struggled with, but when we got it right it was incredibly rewarding. When we got it wrong? Well... there may have been rides where we just careened around the tiny indoor again and again and again with zero control... but let's not dwell lol.  

Quite tragically, and VERY unfairly (to my 17 yr old mind) - both of these horses were PTS during my first year away at college for reasons I didn't fully agree with. Not that they were wrong, but I self-righteously thought the trainer should have tried harder. It was tough for me to come to terms, but that's horses, right?

i wasn't aware this photo was taken until the parent who snapped it gave me a copy weeks later. even all these years later i can still remember this quiet between-classes moment with Ellie

Once I got to college and settled into the new-to-me h/j world (a process that took the better part of a year), I took on barn management shifts to cover twice-weekly lessons. This was supplemented by 'project' horses that needed miles before they could officially become lesson ponies. 

The first was Ellie Mae, a young (and entirely too smart) chestnut TB mare who had a penchant for rearing when you tried to get on. Once you were on tho, it was just a matter of smoothing out the details. Getting her consistent and comfortable. She could be snarky and preferred not to be touched, but could turn on a dime and had a beautiful forward rhythm. 

I had her nearly to myself for a few months since the rearing scared a lot of riders. The rearing initially came from a place of fear - and she had to be tacked in the wash stall otherwise she'd lose her ever-loving marbles. But being a smart and sensible mare, she eventually figured it out and the problem disappeared. (tho another tragic note, she succumbed to white line disease only a couple years later at what was still a very young age)

oh how i love this horse

Once Smellie was 'in the program' I was on to the next project: Lad. I've already written about him a bit on this blog, including when I rode him in a lesson last Labor Day Weekend. 

Lad was another relatively easy horse. His biggest issues revolved around the plain old brute strength it took to ride him. Like - the kind of ride where your arms feel 2" longer when you're finished. 

he has legs for days!

He is SUCH a good boy tho and really tries hard. So once he figured out how to canter like a normal horse around the corners v. careening wildly, and once he developed the strength to carry his own {massive} head rather than leaning on the rider - well, he actually turned into a bit of a lug! 

Lots of kids love him tho, and I had so much fun jumping the big stuff with him. He had snappy little knees even if the rest of him was fugly :) 

Where does that leave me now? With the adorable lease mare Isabel we all know and love! 

Isabel and I are doing things I've only ever dreamed of, and have developed what feels like a special partnership. Does that make her a 'heart horse'? Idk, probably right? I'm not likely to ever forget this time with her, and that seems to be what distinguishes the horses above from the rest. 

So yea, let's call her that. Despite the uncertainty in our situation (written about in one of Beka's blog hops) we can safely include her in the list of important horses in my life.