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 re-injure 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.
The Anti-One Person Horse
Some people have horses that go better for them than any other rider. Their horses nicker when they walk into the barn. If they leave on vacation, when they come home their horses bounce around in a tizzy-fit because they are so excited to have their owner back.
I went on vacation. When I returned, the Super Saint yawned at me.
I don’t mean to imply the Super Saint and I didn’t have any sort of bond or special connection. In fact, we had a deep and meaningful relationship built on intense conversations. They went something like this:
Me: Let’s do a shoulder-in.
Super Saint: You want me to counter-canter?
Me: No, let’s shoulder-in.
Super Saint: Oh, leg yield!
Me: Ah, no. Try again?
Super Saint: Are you sure you wouldn’t rather play rodeo queen?
Me: Actually, you know, I’d sort of like to do a shoulder-in, if that’s all right with you.
Super Saint: Oh. Right. Shoulder-in. That’s that thing where I spin around on my haunches as fast as I can, right?
And so on. Eventually we would do a shoulder-in, but not until he had exhausted all means of misunderstanding my aids. It was in part his natural tendency to play schoolmaster: he’d do anything you’d ask him to, if you asked him exactly right. But it was a game with him, too. My instructor swears he winked at her once or twice before offering up his “alternative” interpretations of the requested movement.
I didn’t believe her until the day I watched a novice rider take him around a course at a schooling show.
If he were a one-person horse, we could all assume that when I schooled him he would be perfect, and, while he might take the novice rider around the course, he wouldn’t sparkle for her the way he did for me.
The reality, however, is that I schooled the Super Saint to discuss lead changes. You have to understand: he didn’t particularly like to do lead changes. Well, that’s not true. Put him in a dressage ring and he liked to do a lead change before every canter-trot transition, just to prove he could. But he didn’t particularly like to do lead changes outside the dressage ring.
So we talked for a bit, and then the novice rider jumped on to warm up, and it was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to get any lead changes in the ring. But it was a novice show, and the idea was for her to have a fun day showing. Into the ring they went.
Down the first line, with Super Saint loping along at his own speed and finding the distances for the rider. Around the corner, with Super Saint slowing to a crawl because the rider completely dropped her leg–but because he was the Super Saint, he didn’t break from the canter. He just, you know, conserved his energy. I’ve seen Western Pleasure mounts trot faster than he was cantering, come to think of it.
And up the diagonal, while I watched on the rail and prayed he’d magically pick up the correct lead over the fence. Or at least keep a balanced counter-canter through the corner so the novice rider could have a confident ride.
Of course he landed on the wrong lead. Of course he did.
Then he looked at me on the rail. And he winked at me.
And did a flying lead change.
Awwww. Wasn’t that sweet? Taking care of his novice rider like that. Perfect show horse. Auto changes. Gotta love him.
Want to know how many lead changes he didn’t offer me during the Open Show that started the next day?
He was the Super Saint, and I loved him, but geeze. What in the world do you call a horse who behaves perfectly for everyone but you?