INVISIBLE STRING: POPTART

INVISIBLE STRING: POPTART

Monday, October 14, 2024

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I have discussed this topic before, but it's always a good one to review. It's about buying a horse. I'm also tying this one in to my Invisible String (it was Invisible Forces, but I guess Taylor Swift wanted me to name it after her song...who am I to argue?) 

Now when I bought this red mare that I call PopTart, I was coming off of not having a horse for about ten years. I had also had my confidence in nearly everything wrecked by my ex-husband. So of course I bought the first horse I tried that was hot and super confident and challenging...because why wouldn't I?

I did not get a PPE, and honestly I had decided to buy her before I ever even went to test her. It was 100% an emotional decision. And I don't regret it at all. 

However, I got lucky. 

I may have lost my confidence, but I had 20+ years of horse experience to rely on. She is reasonably sound and requires minimal maintenance (although that may change with our next vet visit - I'll talk about that later when I have answers). I would not recommend that anyone purchase a horse on vibes alone unless they have the experience and funds to back it up if things take a turn. 

What I would recommend is that if you are a first time or new to the horse game individual that you take a trusted experienced friend or trainer with you. I also definitely recommend a PPE, especially if the price point is a higher one. I'd also recommend trying the horse several different times. 

PopTart ended up being exactly the horse I needed because if I'd gotten a calmer horse or one that didn't challenge me then I wouldn't have renewed my confidence. I firmly believe that if I had gotten a "confidence builder" that I would have gotten complacent. I spent awhile getting her to learn how to walk on a loose rein, pick up her leads, and just in general riding her. It helped that I got her about six months before the covid lockdown, so I ended up having tons of free time to do all of this. 

Now she's had a baby, who I just adore. And once we get the vet clear for an issue she's been having then we will get back to work. If she doesn't get the vet clear, then we will move on from there. She has a permanent home with me either way. 

Someone once told me when I was talking about the love I have for her and how amazing she is that, "she's just a red mare, what's so special about her?" She might just be a red mare to the world, but to me she's everything. She brought me back into horses and made me realize how much they feed my soul. She gave me back a piece of myself that was missing for so long and made me whole again. For that this red mare is supremely special. 

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INVISIBLE STRING: FOXY

INVISIBLE STRING: FOXY

Monday, October 7, 2024

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me + Foxy

circa 1986

If you've been here for a minute you'll remember how I started the Invisible String series to share horses who have been special to me throughout my life. 

None are so special as the first. 

My first horse was a pony, named Foxy. 

My grandpa heard about her from a friend of his, Bob. She had been abandoned in a pasture by his house, and he had taken her to his place so that she wouldn't starve to death. He asked my grandpa to reimburse him for the money he'd spent in feed, plus gas for delivery if we wanted her.

My Papaw took me and my younger cousin Jimmy with him to go look at her. I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Jimmy thought she was ugly. 

She was essentially a skeleton with long shaggy dull red hair with a flaxen mane and tail. Around her hooves the fur turned to a golden color. Her face was frosted with white hairs, and I was in love. 

Papaw tried to talk me out of getting her as he wasn't sure she'd survive with her condition, but I wouldn't budge. And so he gave Bob $50 and asked when he could bring her to our house. Bob said right now, and so they loaded her up and drove her home. I couldn't ride her until she gained weight, but I could brush her and learn to clean her hooves. I braided her mane and rebraided it. As she gained weight and the old dead hair began to shed I spent hours brushing her. 

Then the days came when I could ride her. At first my grandma would walk with me, but as I rode better and got more confident I was allowed to ride alone (it was the 80's). I had parameters for how far I could go, and during that time my grandparents knew every single person in that span. Everyone was watching me even though I didn't know it. 

As I got more confident and we would jump small logs, race around trails, and explore the woods I had quite a few tumbles. Once I decided to use a crop, and Foxy let me know in no uncertain terms how she felt about that. There were multiple times when I had to dust myself off and walk home. She taught me so much, and I will forever be grateful for that little red pony that came home with us when I was not quite five. 

Eventually I outgrew her and the time came for a horse. But Foxy stayed. I still groomed her and braided her mane. She was my best friend until I was 16 when she laid down and never got back up. I sat with her in that stall until she took her last breath. She's buried behind the barn at what is now my mom's house. I am sure that she greeted my Mamaw in 2005 when she died, and I'm sure that both of them as well as all the others I've lost along the way greeted my Papaw in 2021 when he died. 

I still miss that red pony, and I know that every pony deserves a little girl to love them the way I loved her. I wish that for every single horse out there. And I hope that every little horse crazy little girl has the good fortune to know a pony like Foxy. 

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RHONDA DOES A LITTLE RANT

RHONDA DOES A LITTLE RANT

Friday, July 12, 2024

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Roll Your Times

Y'all. 

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I went to watch a local barrel race a few weeks ago. And I watched some of the folks do what felt like thirty thousand time onlies, lope around the filed for freaking hours, then have their kid run the horse in the youth, then they would run it in the open, their kid would also run it in the open, and they'd then let other people run the horse. 

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It just made me shake my head and cringe. 

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Every horse has so many runs in them. Can we get the maximum amount of runs by caring for them properly? Absolutely. Can we decrease the number of runs the horse has by not caring for them? Also yes. 

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Once your horse is seasoned and ready to go, why are they running all those time onlies? In my opinion, TOs or exhibitions are for people who are seasoning young horses or training horses. Occasionally, pulling your open horse through one if they've gotten off track and you need a test run without paying an entry fee. 

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If you're wanting to enter in multiple classes then roll your time. Save your horse. Especially if you have goals bigger than your local jackpot. It's a calculated risk every time we run our horses, so weigh that wear and tear on the horse, the potential for injury against the reward. 

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And seriously, just think about the horse. This running them multiple times at a single race with multiple jockeys and never letting them have a minute to settle down is what causes blown up barrel horses. It causes horses that hate their job. It causes the next person who gets that horse to have to spend years calming their mind down. 

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Perhaps this is more of an issue at local lower level shows, but I just feel like running a horse into the ground, no matter what level you're at, is poor horsemanship. It's one of the reasons that our sport gets so much flack, and I'll be completely honest every time I see people doing this I lose respect for them. 

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INVISIBLE FORCES: RIOT

INVISIBLE FORCES: RIOT

Thursday, June 27, 2024

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Riot

I am starting a new series about horses that I connected with. Not all of them are mine, and not all of them I knew for a long time. Like with people there are horses that we connect with more strongly than others. I used to struggle with that, but it's really okay. I love them all, of course, and I will always treat every horse with dignity and respect. 

TW: euthanasia, horse death, and animal neglect/abuse

I first met Riot several years ago when a former friend purchased him for a very low amount. He was older, thin, and just generally not well taken care of in his later life. He came with an older gelding who was his friend who ended up being euthanized before the year was up. From the time I met Riot I felt something. I almost always do with older horses. 

Maybe it's a respect that they've given their youth and their bodies to us, so I get very emotional about them. Especially when I see them end up in less than ideal situations when they should be enjoying their leisurely life of retirement or semi-retirement. 

I really got to know Riot when he was used in the farm school that I co-owned, although after a few classes I stopped using Riot. He was clearly in pain, and although it was mentioned to his owner several times that behavior changes were occurring nothing was done. Riot did like attention from adults. I think the pulling and unbalanced riding of beginners and children were too much for his arthritis, teeth, and probably the malady of other untreated issues he was experiencing. 

I only rode Riot once, but he perked up more than I'd ever seen him before during that ride as though remembering his glory days where he went to the NFR three times as a head horse in team roping. I've tried to find his videos, but I've never been able to. 

I do know that every time I was near him, he would lay his head on me as if to ask for help. And I tried. I mentioned multiple times that he seemed to be in pain and needed to be fully retired. I offered to let him retire to my pasture. 

Riot died a few months ago. 

A death that could have been prevented, which is partly why his previous owner is a former friend and why I no longer co-own the farmschool. An inexperienced horse person and her friend were out at that barn riding horses and Riot was allowed to eat medicated goat feed, which has an additive in it called rumensin. This additive is extremely toxic to horses in very small amounts. 

Riot acted like he was colicking. The vet came out, tubed him. I have no idea if the truth about what he had ingested was told or not. He ended up seizing and dying in his pen. 

I was devastated and relieved. 

I was devastated because no horse should die a painful death like that. If you have never witnessed a horse having seizures, I hope you never do as it's quite violent and traumatic on their bodies. And because they are so large and it's so violent, there is nothing you can do until it stops. 

I was devastated because he spent the final years of his life unhappy in a dirt lot without shade at a shitty barn with shitty people. 

I was devastated because it was so preventable. 

But I was also relieved. 

I feel like those quiet moments I spent with him when he would lay his head on me were him asking me to help him. I feel like those deep sighs when I would scratch him and let him just be was him begging for relief. And both of our requests were ignored because he was busy making money for someone despite his age and condition. 

And so I was relieved that he was free. I was happy for him that he gets to move on to a happy green pasture with his old friend that he came there with. I was relieved that the pain was gone for him. 

In retrospect, I wish I had offered to buy him more when I saw that he clearly wasn't going to be offered a soft place to retire and instead would be working until the day he dropped dead. I was giving my former friend the benefit of the doubt, and my regret is that it was ultimately at the expense of Riot. 

Rest easy Riot. Run free. 

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