RSSDamn that Hurt!
Nov 05
animals, cats, dogs, horse shows, Horse training, horses, pet sitter, Pets, Uncategorized No Comments
Ok, to continue on I have this Saddlebred filly in my barn who is what I call the “sacrifice your body” horse. About three weeks before Deuce’s first Paint show this filly manages to be the first horse to dump me in I can’t remember how long. Now, I must interject that this filly is typically very calm and low key, that’s what makes this even worse, but every once and awhile she looses a grip on reality. Just as I throw my leg over her she blows up and starts bucking like we are in the PBR finals. About 5 seconds into this, about the time she tries to scale the rail, that I’m not going to stop her and that my ass is inevitably going to meet the dirt. At that point she lets out one last grand leap and sends my flying. Don’t hit you head is all that goes threw my brain as I hurdle earth bound. Wham!!!!
As I pull myself to my hands and knees I realize my pelvic/hip area is pretty messed up. I can down right on my right butt cheek. Hey, but my head is OK! About now I catch my breath and look up to see that damn horse standing across the arena looking at my like she wants a new home. I will be obliged. Now, here’s a piece of info for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of taking a soil sample more than once or twice, and I just realized this myself, but after enough falls you don’t panic when you can’t breath when you hit the ground. It was as if I knew it was part of the deal and just waited to breath. Crazy Huh! The pain in my ass was so bad I couldn’t walk back to the chair for quite awhile. I just laid their in the arena with that damn Saddlebred staring at my. She just stood there for the longest time and never moved. Poetic. In some time I made it to my phone and called my husband to come rescue me from myself.
Now, approximately a week after this incident I am able to walk pretty well on my own without a prominent limp. I have to say the accident set me back a bit. I have been a little apprehensive to ride. Especially, on Deuce even though he has never give me a reason to doubt him. My first ride back was on my kid horse “Robin” trust her more than anything. I never would think that you could shake me at this point in my career, but I guess we are all human. Luckily it didn’t last too long. It took about the month for the anxiety to subside. The suck thing is that I was still a little kitschy at the APHA show and it didn’t really allow me to do my best. No excuses! We still did well. More on that latter.
So now, I have to ask myself what do I do with this horse and how do I tell her owner. Not only is she not the finest specimen and not a wonderful mover but she is in my book dangerous. I decide after much toil and some advise from older colleges to tell her owner to send her down the road. This is going to mean a big money loss for me each month on training and board. I know this client despite what is said isn’t going to replace her with something else for me to train so I’m slitting my own throat financially. After a long one on one talk with the owner the consensus is to sell her. I tell her I think she is not that talented and is inherently and/or potentially dangerous. Morally, what do you do with a horse like her. You don’t want anyone else hurt, but most people don’t have a horse as well trained as her either. In fact, most people probably would think I was being a wimp. Your a trainer suck it up and train her. To watch her you’d put a kid on her. Yet, my gut says she’s a time bomb. As predicted in my previous post no sale on the last minute lookey losers, so the owner decides to give her away to a friend. A young lady, probably in her early 30′s. She appears to be a pretty experienced and capable rider. about as good a prospective new owner as you could hope for in this situation. Personally, I’d like to see her be a broad mare, but I can tell the owner doesn’t exactly believe my assessment of her horses ability to hurt someone. I think the only reason she agreed to get rid of her was because she wasn’t Futurity quality.
After, a ride and the realization the mare is free. The friend decides to take her home. Well, all I can say is she is no longer my problem. The moral of this story is beware no good horse is Free or Cheap! Now time to concentrate on Deuce……….