When I first arrived on the farm, I was quickly introduced to two young stallions. They were four and five at the time and had only been halter broke for a couple of months. One was steel gray and other was a faded bay. They were by the Oldenburg stallion, Routinier, and out of Percheron/Thoroughbred mares.
After a few days into my internship, I was taught how to lead them in and out from turnout and a stall in the barn where they were being taught to be tied and handled. It must have been a wet spring because the dry lot was deep with mud. The stallions didn’t seem to mind trading it for a dry stall bedded down with straw. I didn’t like leading the bay one into the barn because he would jump and spook at every little thing that seemed to be out of place in the aisle. The gray one, however, strode confidently past it all. I began round penning the both of them and teaching them how to wear tack. I should mention that I was also being taught how to do these things because I had never even touched a stallion before coming to the farm, let alone start a horse undersaddle. I had to call my trainer into the stall often when I was working with the bay one (turns out he is actually “seal brown”). The problem was that he wouldn’t let me pick up one of his hooves. In fact, he would raise the opposite foot and put all of his weight on the particular one I wanted to lift. Then he wouldn’t let me slide my finger into the side of his mouth in preparation for a bit. My work with him consisted of going into the stall with him, tying him to the post, and trying to pick up his feet and touch his mouth. Slowly, we progressed.
Another intern, who already was experienced with starting young horses undersaddle, soon came into the picture. She started both of the stallions, but made quicker progress with the bay horse. He was less prone to explosive bucking and was her favorite. I watched them work in the round pen while she explained to me what she was doing. She didn’t last long and when she left, I was suddenly in charge of riding the stallions. The stallions were flip-flopping it seemed and after getting bucked off of the gray one, I began to work solely with the other. He was calmer, beginning to understand his new job, although he was still a little frightened by it. I rode him in the round pen until I felt brave enough to come out into the arena. I still felt nervous when I went to canter him because all of a sudden, his head would drop to the ground, making his back round up beneath the saddle. A feeling similar to the hump (humpiness, humpy-ness?) before a bucking fit. But he never bucked. It was a while before I got him to canter with his nose not dragging in the sand. He made up for it by not being a wild stallion. In fact he was quite manageable. I just had to be careful not to scare him when correcting him for losing focus.
He had most of the winter off and although I did lunge him periodically, not much training happened during the coldest months. As it warmed up, the riding and training picked up as well. In May we stepped into the show ring for the first time. He had been under saddle for roughly nine months, if you didn’t include his winter vacation. To say I was nervous would be putting it lightly. Rocket was nervous too, as it was his first time off of the farm. I unloaded him and put him in his stall at the show barn and he stood there amidst the shavings and trembled. Aw… I lunged him and then had my trainer hold us on the lunge line as we hovered along, slowly gaining confidence along the way. Show day arrived bright and early. Rocket worked out of being introverted as the day continued on. He LOVES getting scratched on his neck and soon had a fan club of scratchers who would fawn over him after he did his tests.
As time does seem to slow when waiting for something important, it felt like twice as long, building up inch by inch to the regional championships. Qualifying proved to be easy and we got the scores we needed at our first recognized show. All we needed was more experience under our belt (and girth)! And experience did we get! FHF Rocketman and I went on to six shows altogether before regionals finally arrived. As we rode on the high of a very successful weekend of showing off, I took a few minutes to reflect on how far we had come in the past year. We both felt so much more confident in the show ring, like we both knew our jobs. Somehow, through all of the sweat and tears (and I’m not joking about either of those!), we had become a team. As they say in the dressage world, it felt like we were “harmonious.” It earned us fifth place in our Training Level championship class of twenty-nine competitors. I sure can’t complain about that (Yvonne here to say MAJOR congratulations to Miss Sarah)!
It felt good because the road had not been easy. After that first show, Rocket had blasted into full-fledged stallion mode and screamed at anything that moved and had hair. Even more unnerving? Just two weeks before regionals he started the trend of being backed off and acting like an obnoxious stallion. True to Rocket-style, he never did anything blatantly disobedient, but it was big for him when you consider that he never had acted up before with me. We worked through it both times, with a lot of coaching and pep talks for me. And this isn’t even mentioning all of the ups and downs that go along with showing. Like the time that Rocket feared for his very life when he saw a black and white pinto Gypsy cob stallion flailing hair everywhere and all the times I for sure thought my heart would stop beating and I would die right there in the saddle. As we stood in the line-up of eight horses with a pink ribbon on our bridle, I couldn’t help but feel proud as Rocket trembled beneath me and tried to leave the arena.
I can’t wait to see what next year brings! (And I am so utterly grateful for this wonderful opportunity to ride, train, and show such a talented young horse.)
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