Welcome to the crazy!!

 

It's time for an introduction and some background before I dive into my journey in dressage, hunters/jumpers, and a bit of western riding. I am a married mother of three sons, currently back in college, equestrian, cat lover, and dog owner, among other things. I am technically an adult amateur, but I show “open” due to AQHA rules regarding the Register of Merit for moving a horse out of the Appendix registry. More on this in another post.

After too many years away, I returned to horse ownership and riding in 2014. I grew up around and with horses. It was in my blood and obvious that I was and am a horse-crazy girl from a young age!

A few disclaimers here … I will say now that I do use stud chains and lip chains when necessary. Having made a trip to the ER in my younger days because I didn’t use a stud chain when I should have, I have absolutely no qualms about using either today. I will do so for my safety, my horses' safety, and anyone else's. My training methods do not have names unless classical is a name. I employ patience, gentleness, and firmness. I don’t “break” horses. I don’t use Parelli, natural horsemanship, Clinton Anderson, or any of the other latest fads or whatever they are called. I calmly introduce new things patiently, allowing the horse time to get used to each new thing. I don’t “run them around in a round pen”, “keep their feet moving,” or any other catchphrases I hear or read. Much of my philosophy with horses was instilled in me by my great uncle George when I was a kid. Uncle George grew up at a time when horses were still in regular use on many farms. We had many long discussions regarding handling and training horses. His favorite words were “patience, gentleness, and kindness” … those talks stuck even though he never had much time to spend with me on working with horses.

I have videos and photos of the various phases of starting my three younger horses that I will share in future posts. I have four horses – Angel (bottom right), my bay mare who is also the dam of my two greys, Lasie (middle right) and Highway (top right), plus Pistol (left), my little chestnut—more on them in future posts.

Pistol, Highway, Lasie, & Angel

I grew up with horses, but not in a horse family with a stable full of horses. There was always a pony at grandma’s farm for us kids to ride, and grandma and her siblings had all grown up with horses. They were of that generation where horses were still part of daily life for many. Grandma could drive a team but never learned how to drive a tractor. I got my first horse of my own when I was in junior high school, never took formal riding lessons, and never competed except for taking one of my horses to the county fair one year and taking part in a couple of fun classes with a friend of mine with her horse.

I wanted to be a jockey from the time I was old enough to know what a jockey was. Bill Shoemaker, Pat Day, and Angel Cordero Jr, among others – were my idols when I was growing up. My grandma and I watched horse races and other equine events on TV when I was at the farm with her, and I watched them whenever I could at home. Grandma quietly and subtly encouraged my love of horses, as did my mom and stepdad. I got to exercise some racing quarter horses for a family friend one summer, including breaking from the starting gate at the county fairgrounds! A knee injury put an end to those plans of becoming a jockey. This was the early 1980s, and knee surgery then was not what it is now, or even 10 years after my initial injury. I finally had that knee surgery in 1993, and it was completely successful.

After high school, I visited some friends in Illinois and got a job with a trainer on the harness racing circuit in Chicago. Taking care of the horses, learning so much more about the care of horses, and even getting to take horses out on the track for their daily workouts was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Several horses became favorites that I still miss. Never Still, aka “Grandma” as she was known in the barn, was a 6-year-old (in 1986) trotting mare who liked to be on the front the whole way. Never Seven, a 4-year-old at the time, trotting gelding, and a cute little chestnut! Jan’s Skipper and Never A Lady were both 3-year-old fillies. Then there was my absolute favorite, West Nation … a 6-year-old (in 1985) pacing gelding with an awesome personality! He was my boy. He was returning from a minor injury when I started caring for him. He trained in a swimming pool at a farm just up the road from the farm we were at part of the week and at our farm on the training track the rest of the time. The bettors on the Chicago circuit knew him as being a bit unpredictable as to when he would win, so he always went off at nice odds of around 20-1. I figured him out and knew when he was more likely to win. The more he faked being a jerk and wanted to play on race day, the more likely he was to win. I played along with him since it was just play.

West Nation

I moved back to Wisconsin and, among other jobs, worked at a couple of other horse farms in my first few years back at home, including working for a racing thoroughbred owner and breeder. Then, horses ended up on the back burner while family and children became my focus. I raised three sons, went through a couple of divorces, and just lived life, always missing horses, but it just wasn’t time to return. I wasn’t even sure I would ever return. I learned how to play bass guitar, drove semi for a while, and explored a variety of other things. We moved to Florida for a few years, from 2000 to 2005. Then we moved back to Wisconsin.

In late 2005, I started seven years of what I will bluntly call hell. Mind-numbing, debilitating back pain took over my life. Doctors, tests, x-rays, CT scans, MRIs, and pain medications became my life. The search for answers and a solution was my focus. I have a lumbosacral transitional vertebra. I will share more on this condition in a separate post. There are four variations of it, and I had the worst one of the variations. I feel that I know more about this issue through all my research than many doctors do. This anomaly had been noted on every one of my X-rays and other radiology reports. Yet so many of the doctors just brushed it off or ignored it. It wasn’t until the middle of 2012 that I found a doctor who saw the obvious, the thing the other doctors looked past or brushed off as normal, and offered a solution – a potential end to my pain. I say “potential”, as spinal surgery has no real guarantee of success. I took the chance and went under the knife. Even while still in recovery, under the influence of the anesthesia, I knew we had gotten it right. I got my life back. I could function again. I was pain-free.

In the middle of 2013, I returned to driving semi and went on the road as a team driver with my husband. It was one of the things I had asked my doctor about once I recovered from my surgery. The other thing I had asked him about was riding horses again. My husband had started driving a few years prior, during my back pain hell, as it was a better source of income since I was unable to work. Driving semi did not work well due to the residual arthritis in my spine. Certain sitting positions trigger the arthritis. Thankfully, riding horses does not – unless I perform “equine-assisted random gravity checks”!

2014 came, and I decided it was time to return to my lifelong passion for horses.

I originally started this blog in 2018 while I was laid up with a broken foot. I am returning it to life now, rewriting many original posts and adding new ones.

My boot cast for my broken foot in May 2018