Fabio is Home! And 100 Posts

This is my 100th post since starting Grace Equestrian! Since starting this blog I have gone from 1 horse to 3. I have had 5 different touching horses in my life. From my sweet Roxy mare who I will have the rest of her life. My Gideon came next. He is the most special little gelding I have and probably will ever meet. Next came Nova, who is my Roxy replacement and perhaps my parade horse. After was Blossom, the pony that loves me such an incredible amount. Unfortunately due to her tinny tiny size I just needed a pony that was a wee bit bigger, so enter the newest member of my herd- Fabio. Fabio is so sweet, I can already tell he is just a very gentle, methodical pony. I am excited to have a project pony and I see a lot of potential in this little fella.

We went for a hand walk yesterday, and he was a little anxious when we left the property, but did fairly well. I think he's used to driving and pulling because he'd just lay down on the lead rope and tuggggg. Hopefully we can break that habit. He is going to spend the rest of this week just cuddling with me, following me everywhere that I go. I am excited to finish up this cute pony!

Fabio's cute little blaze! 

In 100 posts from now I hope to have very little herd turn over, happy finished horses, and maybe even a Rodeo Queen. Where do you hope to be 100 posts from now in your own life?

My First Love

October marked the 6th year that I have owned Roxy. What a journey these past 6 years with her have been. I have had so much fun learning from, and teaching Roxy. We have both grown so much, changed, developed, maturity, and become great at our sport. It makes me terribly sad that at just 10 years old Roxy is no longer perfectly sound.

Barely into her prime years, and she's going to live with a stifle injury for the rest of her life. Thankfully it's not bothering her. We went on a trail ride, and I really pushed her, I felt terrible. We did a lot of hand galloping, and some steep inclines. But the next day she had zero swelling, tenderness, and was not lame. Today I lunged her, and she was so funny! While Dolly was obidient and well mannered, Roxy was prancing around. Her tail was held high and as floated around me. I have no clue what type of fancy trot it was, but I know that I enjoyed watching her do it. She bucked, and played with Dolly, and despite the fact that she was misbehaving I loved it.

I remember the day that I got Roxy. After my mother's year long quest to find me a horse, we finally settled on Roxy. A gorgeous dun mare, with loads of personality, and tons of potential. She also needed more work and training then we understood. I spent the first 6 months of horse ownership galloping entire trail rides with older women on experienced well broke horses. My filly was hardly 4 and 1/2 and I rode her in a full cheek snaffle bit. I ruined her. She didn't stop, she hardly steered, she had no clue how an arena horse should behave, and she had absolutely no ground manners. We needed help, so we reached out to my current trainer. Her barn was about a half hour walk away from where Roxy currently lived, so I trail rode over. My mother drove beside me the whole way, as the trail was the side of a road.

Soon after our first lesson, my mother and I moved Roxy to my current barn. This is when My mother fell in love with Dolly, but this is not Dolly's story- it's Roxy's. Roxy was obese, crazy, and had one speed GO FAST. So naturally I thought "Hey let's do gymkhana! Why not make the hot crazy horse that doesn't stop even crazier?" Well Roxy was really good at gymkhana. And my trainer wanted us to calm her down, so we also did flat classes. Roxy makes a divine English horse, but lacks in the western pleasure aspect. Despite my own disappointment in my mare, we always placed really well.

 Since stopping showing, I have spent the last few years loving my horses, collecting more, and always trying to remember that Roxy altered the path of my life. I am especially thankful for this little green mare, had I bought a finished gelding who knows how bored I would have been. Roxy has been feisty, sassy, and a challenge. Although some days I wanted a perfect, quiet horse, Roxy has always been what I needed. Now that I've learned from my challenging Roxy, I can really appreciate horse with a personality like Nova.

The first time we took Roxy anywhere was to our old ranch's Halloween show. We have not a single photo of me riding her, as I spent most of my time on my seasoned lesson horse Peaches Deck. 

Our First show was at the ranch down the road. 

My first blue ribbon! Awarded to me at the show my trainer put on for all her students. 

Roxy dreaded training for western pleasure, as this photo clearly depicts.

I spent a lot of time lounging around on his mare. 

My little girl looking quite dapper. 

She runs fast patterns.

Can't beat Roxy (or most appys really) when it comes to speed.

Roxy makes such a great trail mount. Point her in a direction and she goes over or under anything in her way. 

She makes for such an awesome mount in terms of working other horses. She ponies anyone, she acts around others with confidence that rubs off on them. It's just awesome to have a mare like this when I work so often with problem horses and babies. 

Our most recent adventure. Heading on a trail that I would rate at a 7/10 Roxy is an awesome mare! 

So I'd like to thank Roxy for all the times we've almost slammed into the rail trying to stop, the times we made my mother cringe thinking we were going to hurt ourselves, the blue ribbons, laughs, cuddles, snuggles, and all the sweet horsey things she does to let me know that she doesn't choose to kill me today. I will have Roxy until the day that she dies, hopefully in her old age she'll calm down enough to be the horse that my future children learn off of. I would love for them to hold the memories of her that I do. 

My First Blue

My first blue ribbon I won at my first show! It was a little ranch show that my BO/trainer put on for all of us. It was a valentines show, hence all of the red shirts. I won the ribbon in the event 'musical poles'. If you've never played, it's hilarious, and I'm planning on having my girls play it sometime. Imagine musical chairs, only on a horseback. And we were relatively green riders. We could all lope, and most of us even galloped on the track to build our horses up, but some of us were pretty green. The event started out with around 20 kids I would say. It was packed. 

Looking back I have no clue how my trainer kept that many of us, and taught us all so well. She is a force of nature, that I hope to some day emulate. 

Jessica on Missy, and Myself on Roxy.

We were down down to the very last pole, and the last two riders- myself and my good friend Jessica. I'm a pretty bold person, and Jessica is very timid. So when the music stopped I kicked Roxy, and we ran to that last pole. Roxy had an awful stop at that point, so I'm pretty sure everyone thought that we were just going to breeze past it. Everyone except for Jessica. I jammed on the breaks, and turned Roxy, grabbed onto that pole for dear life, and made my horse stop.

We smiled, and laughed after, assuring everyone that we would not become archenemies.

  I was soon after awarded my first blue ribbon!! Look how excited I was with my fat, fluffy, sweaty, dun monster!




What was your first victory? Whether it be in training, or in the show ring.

The Lonely Life of a Lesson Horse

Lesson horses were some of our best friends when we first got bitten by the horse bug. We groomed them, loved on them, and despite our best efforts, with kicked them too hard, pulled the bit harshly, and never gave them their face before kicking them to make them go. Despite this all the best of our lesson horses were patient and forgiving. These are the horses I want to highlight here, and give them a little love.

The above horses are my personal lesson horses. I began riding when I was 6, but I took a 2ish year break, and started again when I was 12. That was at BVF, what I know realize is an awful riding/boarding stable. The arena is B.A.R.K. Looking back now, that makes me want to cry for the poor horses. We just didn't know any better though. 

The first horse is is named Sunrise, or Sunset. I only rode them a few times, so I remember almost nothing about them.

The second horse is an appy named Rikitiki. I loved her, but she had major appytude, so I didn't ride her for too long either. Rikitiki was bitten by a rattlesnake as a foal, she was apparently named after some folktale where that happens. 

The third horse was my first love, Peaches Deck. BVF loved the deck line of horses, they had many many decks. I think the first horse was a deck too actually. Peaches was a little (14.3) quarter horse mare. I loved her. I learned gymkhana on her, and we used to win at all the fun shows because she was so fast! 

This little Pony is Pumpkin. I started taking dressage lessons, at my Aunt (more like grandmother)'s request. Her daughter in law has a GORGEOUS thoroughbred gelding, and they do dressage. Pumpkin was a little pony, and at this point I owned Roxy, a pretty good size mare, so he seemed even smaller than he was. 

I was pretty big, so I quickly moved on to ride Oasis. He was a 17hh black thoroughbred. I thought he was the most handsome horse in the world, and I was thrilled to ride him. But my dressage lessons were short lived, remember I owned a horse, and I was a little cowgirl. So I enjoyed the dressage, but the training process was just too slow. I had already been galloping around the barrels on my own horse, so not even being able to lope killed me. And they lost me because of how slow it moved. Also I just didn't really agree with how they were training me. I think my mom saw me stuck in a round pen, or on a line, not progressing, when she knew that I could ride. I did learn a lot, and I am thankful that I got those dressage lessons. 

Now onto the horses that I didn't learn atop, but I have/got the pleasure of teaching others with.

This big love is Radar. This is literally the best horse in the world. Well second best, we had one horse that was even better named Lacey. Radar passed away a few years ago. But up until the last day I knew him he was sound enough to walk, trot, canter, but only with the right rider. We could trot Radar with a baby on his back, and know that he wouldn't bolt, buck, or even think of throwing his head. Radar also absolutely loved to be curried on his withers. He'd stretch his neck out and grin. An absolute love. 

The fleabitten Anglo is Sheik. He was one of my mother's favorites in the 'pre dolly' days. He was a feisty boy the whole time that I knew him. And he was also my dear BO's husband's horse, back when he used to ride. 

The big Percheron Cross is Leah. She was a total love, as I have known draft horses to be. Leah was a sweet mare, and beautiful. She died of a very rare kind of equine cancer. She was quite young, and it was quite tragic. 

That handsome boy is Leroy, the rider is my friend Jessica. Leroy is a Tennessee Walker, and he was her show horse. It was unfortunate that he was gated, because he did awful at shows. Jessica trained him so hard, and they did look great. 

Sorry for the quality, but I really wanted to show this mare. The paint mare next to the Roxy but is Sassy. She was my trainer's horse. Sassy was a hot little quarter horse. My trainer loved her pinto mare, and her death was tragic. My understanding is that someone put another horse was put into her stall, and the horse basically fought with her until it nearly killed her. Extremely tragic. 

It's unfortunate that some of these spectacular horses are no longer. It is even more unfortunate that they had to live the life of lesson horses. Adored on by many, but truly loved by none.