There have been hundreds of horses in my life and certainly, the ones in my early stages of riding carved serious memories in the corner of my mind. But I can distinctly remember the first horse I ever loved. When I was 15 I spent a summer in Southern Pines, NC. My best friend and I were working students for a fantastic woman who single-handedly took me from riding nothing but bad ponies (I was a TINY kid) to breezing thoroughbreds that I could barely mount. She turned me into a very brave rider simply by being a no nonsense instructor. She knew instantly what you were capable of and held you to it each and every time you rode. I still find myself trying to channel the energy I felt that summer. We rode 2 times a day, 5 days a week, for the whole summer. The first horse I started riding was owned by a young girl who wanted a large thoroughbred greenie, but got spooked by all of his goofiness, and since she already had a lovely Welsh Pony that was perfect, she was happy to have someone else ride him. He's not the horse that this post is about, so I will keep his story short and sweet -- I got him jumping again, he was just brilliant, a girl came to to try him and purchased him after he cleared a spread of two fences 12 feet apart in a grid (by accident) from a trot.
The horse I fell in love with that summer was Tix. An unfortunate name, for an unfortunate horse. He was an ex-racehorse, skinny, high-withered, and leggy. A dark bay, nearly black, long string of a horse. The first day I rode there we all hopped on ponies and hacked around bareback. I remembered commenting on him (I have a thing for haggard looking horses I suppose) and the girl riding with us told us that no one really rode him, he didn't trust people, but he was the best jumper in the whole barn. She continued, "you'd never know it from looking at him". She was right, he didn't look capable of much.
So after Cary had sold I needed a new summer project. We would go to the chalkboard everyday in the barn and look for our names matched with horses and run off to find our mounts. I was paired with Tix for the first time, and all the girls came over to warn me about him. *At this point I HAD seen the assistant trainer ride him around, though he looked like he was ponying around the track. They told me he doesn't cross tie. He rears. Don't touch his face. And on, and on. It's true, I was scared of him, even if he was a scrawny little thing. That fateful first day, he DID rear in his stall when I got to close to his poll. I panicked for a second, but then reached out and patted his shoulder, he put all four feet on the ground and let out a deep breath. From that moment on we trusted each other. Sure, he was weird to ride. He was, um, squirrel-y. But we bonded. He was happy to be back in full work and he never, ever put a foot wrong with me. Even the first day I jumped him...we were testing out the striding for a pony club jump course. It started to pour. I could feel him tensing up, every muscle in his body was quivering, but he waiting for me, waiting for me to tell him what to do next. We started our course and my instructor called out "He's going to refuse, just ask him to come again when he does."
Guess what? He didn't refuse. He. Never. Refused. A. Thing. We jumped everything I pointed him at, together. We were a little team. At the end of the summer I showed him and we took a ribbon in every class. The best moment of the day was our equitation class, winning our first blue together (and putting those perfect hunter horses to shame) and while waiting for our name to be announced he spooked violently at the little blue ribbon flapping in the wind. Oh Thoroughbreds. I'll never forget Tix. I loved that horse.
Boys never really stood a chance against horses in my life and certainly not this special guy.
My 15-year old self making George Morris cringe.
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