New Journeys

 This fall has been my season of change.  Today I started the first new job I’ve had in over twenty years.  I sat in my car before I was scheduled to go in for a full five minutes, trembling and heart hammering until I told myself that this was a good thing and to get a move on. 

I sent Fox off to his new adventures. I was sad for a little while but not once did I think I had made a mistake.  I always want my animals to be happy and if they aren’t I try to figure out why. For Fox that meant letting him go find his own joy with someone who would love him for himself and only himself. 

So then there was this horse shaped hole in my heart. And as every equestrian knows that hole will suck down your soul until it is filled.  So I went about trying to find what I wanted within the budget I could muster.  I really wanted a sweet, old schoolmaster but those are seriously hard to find in my budget. 

The next option was a very young horse.  I sifted, I hunted, I searched. I really wanted a Section D Welsh Cob, one with dressage movement.  Those are seriously hard to find, even rarer are cobs that nice within my budget.  Yet I managed, somehow to find a very special girl. I now realize that I absolutely have a type. As I looked back on it I saw that all the horses I’ve truly loved were chestnut mares.  My first heart horse, hopefully not my last, was a small, deep red, AQHA mare. I’d give almost anything to have that mare back. But she is long in the grave. So in her well loved footsteps comes the new redhead in my life. 

Castleberry Reverie (Roo) is a Welsh Cob x Belgian Warmblood.  I flew out to Indiana a couple of weeks ago and got to meet not just Roo but both of her parents and a lot of her siblings.  Roo’s dam, Reminisce is a huge, Belgian Warmblood mare.  Seriously she was every bit of 17+ hands and her withers were at least a foot over my head.  I stepped in to a pasture with three breeding stallions and had not one reservation about my safety as they were some of the sweetest boys I’d ever met.  Roo is quiet, snuggly and so very very smart. 

She had never stepped on a trailer before she got on to the shippers and she walked right in.  After staying at a farm in Maryland for three days, she then stepped right in to my trailer and behaved liked a seasoned traveler.  Roo then stepped off my trailer and settled in to her stall without a single issue. 

Roo is quickly curling her red nose in against my heart and I’m happy to let her. I fully admit it I LOVE CHESTNUT MARES!

When the Romance is Over, You Begin a New Journey

 There are lots of changes in store for me this year. I am finally, FINALLY retiring from the Navy and will have more control over my own life.  Purple hair dye here I come!  My husband also changed jobs and now has more time to spend at home and is actually doing a job that he enjoys.  I am trying to get my photography business off the ground and do other things to try and arrange my life so that I can work from home. 

In my equestrian life I haven’t really done much. I have a lesson scheduled for next week with a new dressage trainer.  I have decided to leave jumping behind for awhile and study dressage as I find I am too anxious jumping these days. I still love the pony. She’s sassy and quirky sometimes, but I love that red Welsh mare.  Now that Superhubs has more time to spend with Cowboy he’s becoming less of a menace and I will be taking him to my dressage lesson next week. 

I’m taking Cowboy because Fox will be leaving me soon.  I have a realized, yes it took me seven years,  that my knee jerk reaction to retiring Seneca has landed me with a partner that isn’t a good fit. He doesn’t fully trust me and I feel the same.  This never makes for a harmonious partnership.  This combined with Fox’s terrible feet mean that I can’t even really dream about competing again.  So I made the extremely difficult but necessary decision to return Fox to his adoption program so that they can find him his perfect home.  I will probably take some flack for this but it was the right choice.   I’m a little sad, a lot guilty, but mostly I’m relieved.  I want both of us to be happy and I don’t think Fox is and I know that I’m not.

So with that on the horizon I am indulging in the ultimate equestrian past time, haunting every possible nook and cranny of the internet to find my next partner.  I have my eye on and am discussing a Warmblood Welsh Cob Cross filly, she seems like a lovely meshing of my two favorites types and her siblings all move extraordinarily well. But we’ll see.  I’d love something a little older, closer to backing but I can only afford what I can afford.  

Until next time, keep it between the flags everyone.