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Missing Project Pony
I tend to be very reserved–I don’t like talking about myself. Which… explains why I blog? I know, I know. It makes no sense to me either.
So when I went off to college, I didn’t tell the riding instructors that the Super Saint had just been put to sleep. Naively, I thought I could handle the grief on my own time and it wouldn’t affect my riding. And because karma has a sick sense of humor, the first horse I rode at college was a tall, bay Thoroughbred whose name was a variation of the Super Saint’s and whose personality was close enough to the Super Saints that I was in tears by the end of the lesson.
Yay, first impressions with new instructors!
After the obligatory “you have to tell us these things” not-quite-a-lecture, I think my instructor went through the barn and found the least Super-Saint-like horse there was for my next lesson.
Enter the Project Pony. Actually, I don’t remember if she was officially my “project” or anything like that–for all I know, I was her project. I do know that she was new to the program and a little overwhelmed. My memory is hazy, but I believe the details were something like: her owner had only ridden her outdoors, the mare had never been in a group lesson situation before, and the mare had only been ridden by her owner. It’s a big step from that situation to an indoor college lesson program, where fifteen horses could share the ring when it rained and the mare was expected to have a new rider every day.
Project Pony was… erm… anxious. I was… erm… an emotional wreck. Together, we were our own little group therapy session.
The first day I rode her, the rest of my lesson was doing small jumps. Project Pony and I pranced around the arena until they were done, and then we walked between two jump standards. Well, no. First we bolted between them. Then we did a hunter horse’s version of passage through them. We probably pranced once or twice. Eventually, we walked through them.
For the rest of the year, I rode Project Pony in most of my lessons. She settled in quite nicely. And once she settled, she turned out to be a decent horse for advanced beginner riders–which meant she wasn’t supposed to be used in my lessons.
When my sophomore year started, they pried my resisting fingers out of Project Pony’s redheaded mane and put me on different horses. I begged, I pleaded, I bribed: I still got thrown on different horses. Every once in a while, one of her other riders would fry poor Project Pony’s brain, and then I got to ride her again. Every once in a while, I’d reinjure my back, or something else would happen to me, and for my physical or mental health I’d get to ride Project Pony again. Fortunately, only one of us was a wreck on any given day. I suspect, however, that we both could have been a wreck and it would have worked out all right. We just would have stood in a corner of the arena going “It’s ok… tell me it’s ok… it’s ok… tell me it’s ok… are we going to die if we trot? tell me we won’t die… I won’t die if you don’t die… it’s ok… tell me it’s ok…” at each other.
I don’t know why I’m so nostalgic this week. She’s just a little chestnut mare, you know?
And I’ve written myself into a corner where the only way out is some profound-sounding Hallmark kind of ending, and I’m not a Hallmark ending kind of gal. Neither is the Project Pony.
So I’ll just end with a general salute to apples and to Project Pony’s “What do you mean, I can’t have the whole thing all at once?” expression when I fed them to her.
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Comments
Aren’t project ponies awesome? I appreciate the school masters, but there’s something very special in the projects, isn’t there?
Project pony sounds like just the right horse for that time in your life and you for her’s. That’s as it should be. Funny how those kinds of things can impact us. I enjoyed it - and I know that look that “what do you mean I can’t have the whole thing at once look?” Who’da thunk horses could be good a guilt?
Isn’t it amazing how the right animals come into our lives at the right time even if only for a short period of time? That amazes me!
On Oct 8, 2006, jl said:
Nice post! A salute to all project ponies who need someone to take a little time to understand them and leave our lives just when things are really getting good. At least we know their lives will be happier for the time we spent together. And they give us as much as we give them, making us better riders and happier people.
You made me think fondly of all of the wonderful misfits that I have had the priviledge to love over the years. I hope I meant half as much to them as they did to me!