I figure that a good starting point will be….well….the beginning. How did I come to have Traveller? When did the horse fever first hit me? Were there others before Trav?
I know these are the questions that must keep everyone up at night, so without any further suspense:
Like the majority of young girls I always dreamed of having my own horse. Living where I do, I have always been surrounded by horsey influences (western and english) and I could just picture myself riding high over the mountain ridge at sunset and then riding under the clock tower into the International ring at Spruce Meadows.
Well, alright, we did live on an acreage and we did have horsey neighbours that were more than willing to have our horses on their property and help us out in every way…..so what was holding us back? My parents decided that, as an eight year old, this was probably a passing phase and soon I would be onto something else. They certainly did not want to pour money and time into a horse just to be stuck with it after I was ‘done’. The deal they proposed was that I had to come up with $500 dollars to help cover the purchase price and prove that I really did want a horse. Looking back, this is obviously quite a trivial amount compared to the actual cost of owning and caring for a horse, but to and eight year old without any job opportunities, it was a fortune. For the next two years, instead of asking for any birthday or Christmas presents, I asked for money for my horse fund—a seemingly impossible feat, but I finally did it!
Now that I had met my parents condition (they will admit now that they never thought I would), it was on to horse shopping! Now, I had taken a year of lessons when I was six, but four years later it was all gone. I hated to admit it, but I loved the thought of riding but the actual getting on an animal the size of a house was a little bit terrifying. So we needed a horse that was very quiet but with enough pep when needed, sound, safe, not too young, not too old, not $10000….and the list went on. I will save you the torture of reading about the search itself and instead introduce the end product….Bob!
A 16 year old (turned out to be 20, but I’ll get to that later) grade gelding who was on the way to slaughter when a rescue organization found him. He was terribly skinny, had awful feet, but had a true heart of gold.
(Very) long story short, with Bob I gained a tremendous amount of confidence and successfully made it up to D2 in pony club, jumping 2’6, going to rallies, having fun with gymkhana, trail riding…..it really was a wonderful introduction to riding.
So, I know this is a blog about Traveller, but I have to give Bob some credit, without him I guarantee I would not have Traveller, and who knows, if I didn’t have such an excellent first horse, I may be out of horses all together.
When I was 11 (I think) I wrote a story about Bob for a local horse publications contest and ended up winning, having my initial story and one other published. One night while sitting at home a man called our house and said that we may have a horse that he had owned years before. After describing the horse and its mannerisms we confirmed that, yes indeed, Bob was this horse! We found out the Bob is actually a registed QH with the name of Border Hopper. This is because, as a foal, he was brought from Florida to Canada……to race. It turns out he was a racing QH who only started 3 times, coming third once, but was then retired from the track because he just didn’t have the heart for it. Oh, and he was born in 1980, making him 20 when we got him. After the track he was passed around a bit and then ended up with this guy where he did some cutting and general ranch work for a few years.
I still have my Bob, now at the ripe old age of 30 he enjoys doing nothing but relaxing in the pasture, going for the occasional walk with my younger cousin, and his most favourite thing of all, eating senior food!
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment