Riding a horse
for me is more than recreation, more than sport. It is forging a team, whose communication is
through intimate physical contact.
Signals are sent and received in a constant stream, most of them
imperceptible to the observer (really, many of them are imperceptible to me as
the rider). In a contract of trust, the
rider provides confidence and direction while the horse becomes an extension of
the rider. It takes time to build the
relationship, time for the horse and rider to learn to read each other.
I originally purchased Squishy in a partnership, as a business venture. Our goal was to buy a young horse, who would
be trained and shown by a professional, and then sell him as a fine derby
horse. When Shane Brown brought him home from
Texas, where we had purchased him sight unseen, I admit I was
disappointed. As I led him out of his
stall, all I could see was an ordinary brown horse. I’d been warned that he wasn’t
beautiful. My reply was “beauty is as
beauty does.” But still. Did he have to be so plain? Even the name he came with was common to his
bloodlines: Tejon.
As Shane worked
with him, building up his confidence and teaching him how to learn and use his body, Tejon began to
bloom. He was a talented stopper and
pretty mover. He did have a white star
and four white socks. His coat was a
reddish sort of bay, so maybe not plain brown.
I stood on the fence, watching him ride, evaluating his strengths and
weaknesses from a distance, strictly reminding myself that this was a business
venture.
One day, Shane
let me ride him. Shane had warned me
that the horse was short-necked, but from the ground, Tejon was a nicely-formed,
balanced horse. After I settled in the
saddle, however, I realized what Shane meant.
Riding him was like riding a cab-over truck, where it felt like the
saddle was perched right behind his head.
During that first ride, Tejon kept checking in, wanting to know what I
expected of him. We were both tentative. My stern reminders of the business side of this were weakening.
After a time, we
(my partner, Shane, and I) came to realize that Tejon just wasn’t cut out to be
an open rider-level horse. Since we had
entered him in the big Futurity in Oklahoma, we decided that I would show him
in the Nonpro class. That fall, I rode
Tejon as much as possible, in an effort to build our trust contract before we
were under the pressure of a show pen. I threw the business facade out the window and embraced a new relationship.
For Tejon, having
a Nonpro for a rider meant that there were treats, rub downs, long baths, walks
in the grass, and time spent exploring the world together. During that time, Tejon grew into an
expressive, interactive horse with a compact build. Plain ole Tejon just didn’t seem to fit
anymore. So he became Squishy.
Squishy and I
worked hard on our partnership together.
We showed at the Futurity, where we didn’t place, but we didn’t shame
ourselves either. I continued to show him during
the following two show seasons. We had
some good classes, and we had some bad ones (one in particular comes to mind where
he jumped sideways at the end of every stop).
In the end, we had a great friendship, but we weren’t a team. Squishy needed someone with confidence and an ability to dominate the ride.
I needed a horse that would forgive my indecision and heal my broken
trust from a prior horse. Like a
bad romance, we were both too needy.
No matter how
much fun we had when I was out of the saddle, it was time for each of us to
find a new partner. Very rarely is there a horse and
rider team that can grow together, from Rookie to Intermediate and beyond. More often, a competitor has to be prepared
to bring in and let go of several horses during their show career. Intellectually, I know this. Emotionally, I have yet to let go of a horse.
So it came to
that fall day in Denver. His expression
on that day is crystal clear in my mind. He had this way of getting hugs from me by butting his head against my chest. The hugs always turned to rubs, where he rewarded my efforts with sighs and a blissful expression. On that day, with my own sigh, I backed out of the stall, pushed his seeking nose back in, and slid the door shut. At the end of the alley, I looked back, and there he stood. Both his expression and body reached out to me.
He trusted me. In leaving him
there, I was breaking that trust, and breaking our bond. That still hurts my heart and brings tears to my eyes. Even so, I know that I made the right
decision for Squishy and for me. Squishy found a new vocation with less precision and pressure. I found a horse exceeding my competitive abilities, but who could wait patiently for my trust.
