Hoofbeats to my Heart
| June 3, 2022 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
If you’ve been following me on instagram (@drmelnewton) you’ve already seen Katie, the pony that I bought Fig (and if we are being honest….myself).
Did I mention that we are leasing a polo pony this summer too? Please no one start counting, I’d like to be in denial about hay costs this summer.
Driving down to meet her and drive her home was step one in a massive weekend’s worth of events.
But the thing is, we all know that a good pony – one that is not a shite – is worth her weight in gold.
And so, if it requires 10.5 hours of driving a trailer round trip on your one day off, right before a week gymkhanas, polo tournaments, ER shifts, and epic ancient roman feasts (yes. I’m serious), then that’s what you do.
Apparently I have a list of lies I tell myself and I believe. Here’s a selection that were brought to my attention the week of pony pick up.
I don’t do impulsive things.
Friend: but you did run your first 50 miler at the last minute. With no actual preparation or advanced registration.
Me: Oh. That’s true.
I was firmly on the path to boring and middle-aged life before I was dragged down the side path of “play polo again!”
Different Friend: No you weren’t.
Me: Well….
So this is what I did.
Fig met me at the barn at almost 10p to meet her pony off the trailer.
First lesson
I bought a pony.
Her name is Katie. She’s 15 years old, 1/2 shetland and the other half mix of arab and quarter horse. She was trained by my extremely talented cousin Elle (@ellespeaksstudio instagram) who aside from being a talented artist is also an accomplished rider.
After Cache Creek I had decided that if Fig was going to continue to ride now instead of waiting until she was older and bigger, I would need to get her a pony that fit her. I had watched several kids her age and younger with their ponies and realized how important having something that you felt comfortable on.
Sure, some kids Fig’s age and size are comfortable with big horses. She isn’t. I have access to some really good horses, but nothing I can turn her loose on now or in the near future.
Elle was my first stop because I knew she had a handful of ponies she had trained in pony club a few years ago, but I wasn’t sure whether she had anything that would be a good fit for Paige.
Turns out there was a pony and her name was Katie.
How small is Katie? (that’s the most common question I get).
She’s taller than the kitchen counter. Shorter than the sidewall of a pick up truck.
She’s the right size for Fig right now and for the next 10 years and is big enough that I can still hop on her and ride.
We’ve been working on a lunge and lead line in the arena. Turns out a pony trot is a lot harder to post than a big horse trot!
I give Fig the choice bareback or a saddle and right now she’s been choosing bareback – something she was never comfortable with on the bigger horses – although I don’t know how she stays on the roly poly barrel of a pony without withers because I tried once and almost fell off….
Katie has a lot of buttons and is really well trained. Walk, trot, canter, lateral movements, spins, jumps, cross country experience, trail miles…….
Sometimes I wonder how Katie feels about her new job as a kid’s horse.
But when ever I zoom in on pictures of the two of them together there is such a look of joy on Fig’s face and a look of tenderness on Katie’s…I feel like I’ve made the right decision, despite the WHAT THE HECK HAVE I DONE feeling that inevitably occurs when I do something crazy.
When I showed up at my aunt’s Katie was still that clean cool that you only get it from a recent bath. A goodbye bath from a person who cared and loved her very deeply.
I cried when I saw MerryLegs after I sold her (if her owner is reading this, it wasn’t from regret. Apparently it’s because I’m more sentimental than I thought). I can’t imagine how it is to say goodbye to a horse that you trained from scratch and lived with.
Here’s the other thing I’ve allowed myself to remember.
I’ve become a brown horse snob (give me a nice nondescript overlooked brown horse and we will rule the world!) but if I’m being honest with myself (which is hard because apparently self-deception is my speciality)….. I’ll remember that my first horse that I dreamed of having for my own was a pinto, about the same size as Kaity.
Kind of brings a little happy tear!
I love this! Katie’s first little girl.
Katie looks so happy! I always had intended to sell the ponies I was training, but Katie was just such a special one I couldn’t unless it was the perfect home, as soon as you said you were looking for a pony, I knew. Katie’s always wanted a kid of her own. And I get to visit !
ANYTIME.
Wait, I missed where you sold MerryLegs? I know I’ve been easily distracted, but…!
The new pony looks amazeballs. Good choice!
Yep, I sold her in February. It was not an easy choice but also very easy if that makes sense? She hates drilling and doing anything more than a handful of times. That’s what my horse life is right now. The same trails over and over and the doing drills in the arena. She was exactly the right age to dive into something like endurance, and my trainer was positive she could find a buyer who was basically perfect and she did. ML sold to someone on her list, never was publicly listed, and basically has the perfect home for her. I saw her at an endurance ride several months after selling her and her energy was so good. She has been renamed Quinn because her new owners name is a lot like “Merry” and since I like to rename all my animals when they come to me, I whole-heartedly agree. A new home is a new start and sometimes a new name is just the thing. I have such limited spots in my life for horses and I was increasingly feeling like ML was taking up a spot that I wanted to reserve for another. Initially I thought it was just going to be Farley + me leasing random polo horses, but then Katie came along and it turns out that a spotted pony is exactly what me and paige had been waiting for and didn’t know it.