I am working on a link to the story in it's entirety. Any help setting up A pdf file would be greatly appreciated. I am a horse trainer not a computer genius, you are lucky I have figured out how to post.
I have finished with what we have already. Please help me continue the rest of the story.
Here's where we left off last week with our story:
Sam's mind wandered back to when Firefly was born. Lady had an uneventful pregnancy but her delivery was anything but uneventful, it became a very touch and go situation. There had been a very real possibility that both Lady and her foal wouldn’t make it.
Lady had started her labor out normally, and progressed very quickly. As her contractions got closer and closer together, she started to push the foal out of her body... but something was very wrong. The foals legs were bent backwards at the knees, and no matter how hard she pushed, she would never be able to get the baby out on her own.
The Old Man had been forced to manually move both forelegs into the correct position for the filly to be born, a very tricky and difficult maneuver. He had almost lost both the mare and the foal, but his quick actions had allowed the foal to be put into the correct birthing position. It wasn't very soon after that Lady had a brand new filly lying by her side. He had named the little filly Duchess, but the little girl's name of Firefly fit the bay mare as well.
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As far as tonight's post goes......What are your favorite memories with your horses?
Have a Happy 4th of July and a Safe Weekend!
We will be back to training on Monday!
Update on the Morgan story
14 years ago
25 comments:
My favorite, or one of my favorites was riding Strider one afternoon on a gray cold day on the beach. Tide was out, and my horse was on. I was on. It was one of those perfectly balanced rides, think it and it happens. Soft, forward, lovely. If I'd been in a dressage court I swear I would have scored in the 90's. It was amazing. We were just playing, kind of dancing together. It is truly one of my favorite memories.
This spring was special, showing Sunny in cart class, his first time hitched and all his training was at home. I have lots of favs though.
My favorite memories are:
My first memory-a gray Percheron face snuffling me as I was held by my dad (I was 2-3 years old).
Seeing my first cutting horse.
My first meeting w/ Number 1 (a Mustang) when she walked up-looked me in the eye and bit me (decipher that all you NH people). I bought/saved her and trained her.
A few years later when I bothered to show her (CNJ she is a HJ horse) we won 23 ribbons and 2 reserves in 2 shows, and everyone wanted to buy her-NOT HAPPENING)!
Getting my first TB. (hitches up pants)!
I started to type the day I bought my first horse, as it was in a way, the beginning, but the years riding before and since deserve equal merit, So for now I will say my favorite memory is the most recent , and tomorrow it will change again ,and keep being new an different as long as this love affair I have with horses continues!
Philosophical twit today aren't I
It's hard to pick one. I just chose one that came to mind. I used to love it when my friend Sheri would leave her can of Pepsi on the fender of the horse trailer. Shad would always tip it over, and drink her Pepsi. They went round and round about it.
It wasnt so funny when he ate my turkey sandwich on an all day ride, however. lol
Love the story so far! Just got back in from the barn, I am dead tired. Long day...
Favorite horsey memories...gawd, there are so many it would be impossible to relate them all and foolish to even try. :)
I was 8, and had been riding what I thought was the newest barn owned lesson horse for a week. He was a 10-ish Anglo-arab chestnut gelding named Robyn Hood. I had ridden him twice, two days in a row, and I thought I was in heaven because up till that point my lessons were once a week. I had gotten TWO that week, so life was good.
At the end of the second lesson, I was brushing him down, and my mother was talking to my trainer off to the side a bit, far enough away so I couldn't hear what they were saying. They did that often during and after my lessons, so I didn't pay any attention to it.
My mother called me over to her, so I walked to her, and when I got to her she leaned over and told me - and I quote -
"You better brush him so he's really pretty, because he's yours."
To this day, that moment still brings tears to my eyes and that was 22 years ago!
Talk about a horse crazy girl's dream come true! I think every girl in love with horses riding a lesson horse thats not theirs dreams of their parents telling them out of the blue one day that the horse they ride is theirs. I was lucky enough that it actually happened!
Thats my favorite horse memory. I've had good ones since, but nothing will ever top that day :).
Flying. On my first really First Class horse of my own.
Ruby.
Every time I hear of a horse getting a new home and essentially 'WINNING!' the Good Home Lottery.
Yep, that does it for me. Especially when it's a horse I have worked with and/or brought along in their training.
LizBeth- if we were voting on these, you would win. No doubt- That is awesome!
JR:
I have been waiting for someone who has foaling knowledge to pick-up storyline, HINT, HINT!!!
I have many wonderful memories with my horses. I guess my best one is a collective one of all of my years with Spunky when he was younger. He always made me happy and was there for me in whatever I did with him. I miss that alot although I still have him, he is 27 and not rideable.
Lizbeth:
OMG, I love your parents! How wonderful that must have been.
CharlesCityCat said...
JR:
I have been waiting for someone who has foaling knowledge to pick-up storyline, HINT, HINT!!!
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Gotcha
We will get on that really soon.
The whole foaling sequence was a flashback for the old man. Do we want to delve deeper into the flashback/life of the young Firefly and what the mare went through? Or do we want to continue on with the present - Katie and Firefly?
It seems like there are three story lines here.
(1) Katie and Firefly BEFORE firefly was bred. - There isn't a whole lot on that line.
(2) Firefly as a baby and what she went through to get to Kaite
(3) Firefly preggers and due any day.
They can all be folded together in final editing.
When you post next - perhaps post the last paragraph (as you did here) of each story line to keep the writers from straying too far off track. I envision that as each story line continues, they will eventually merge.
Just some thoughts....
Karen
I think that I have it pretty well worked out as of today as I was re-reading it and found a few things.
I have to PDF it and set up a link so you all can read it.
Continuation of storyline 2
As the days and weeks passed, the old man, at the time, not quite so old, watch the fillies and colts run and play, and develop into fine weanlings. Although he never tried to play favorites and loved all his horses, the little bay filly he called Duchess stood out above the others.
Duchess, though bred similarly to the rest, had better conformation. She was more agile, more elegant, her trot more floaty. To watch her move was to watch the very definition of elegance and finess. She move naturally off her hind-end, and when standing quiet and looking around, always stood "square."
She was the dreamer's dream come true. The natural talent possessed by this filly was not something that happened often, and though trainers drilled their charges endlessly and the horses tried very hard to please, there was that "something", that "X" factor that could not be taught or trained. The horse either had it, or it didn't.
Duchess had "it".
As I have yet to own my own horse, I have many memories of lesson horses and horses that belonged to someone else. The one that comes to mind strongest was the day I got to jump my favorite mare at Centenary over a 4' fence. To date, it remains the biggest fence I've jumped and the feeling was amazing. The mare, Kiki, was an absolute psycho to ride, but I loved her for it. :) She was almost mine, no one else ever wanted to ride her so I did.
On my first trail riding trip to Brown County State Park, on the first day I was nervous - and so was my horse.
On the second day I actually listened to a grownup and figured out that if I just chilled out and had fun, so did my horse.
Wow. Nothing like riding thru beautiful woods on the horse you love, accomplishing things on unfamiliar terrain because you'd prepared as best you could, and coming back to camp for a big pancake brunch.
The SMELL. The combo of wood smoke, forest, horse & bacon. OMG.
Oh, and winning a 3rd my first time at the State Fair in HUS because they had an actual hunter judge instead of an AQHA type judge. We got a 10th in Hunter Halter, too, I think. (Back when you had to QUALIFY for State Fair.)
All those yukky teenager days when you find refuge at the barn with your horse.
Favorite time on horse...the light bulb moment, when a frightened messed up angry horse discovers that I'm just trying to talk to it, and it starts to converse. Seeing a misunderstanding between a horse an rider that love each other get resolved. Wow. Nothing beats that, well, except taking the old ruined mare that was a joke and teaching her how to use her body and winning at barrel racing on her...vindicating fun!
Favorite memories:
I used to ride Harmony, my now-29 year old, at night when there was a full moon. We used to hand-gallop around the perimeter of my back hayfield. That was some of the most fun I have ever had on a horse.
My mom teaching one of my first old rescued red Thoroughbred mares to come to the back door and put her head into the living room for carrots. My mom was scared of horses, but the old mare was quite content to act like a dog, so they became friends.
Giving that same old mare to one of my lesson students for Christmas. She came into the aisle and we had her gift-wrapped in ribbons. She owned her for the rest of her life, and won a lot on her.
Doing a polo exhibition at the Midwest Horse Fair and making a goal from halfway down the arena. It was a total fluke but all the women in the audience applauded, LOL.
Every time I ride the VLC, it's special. He's the horse equivalent of a big Mercedes sedan - he's so calm and smooth and I never get tired of looking at him. And it's so nice to ride a horse that really doesn't have a spook. He doesn't seem to believe he is a prey animal, LOL. He just wants to stick his nose in everything that would spook most horses and snarfle all over it. Our very first ride, a barn cat rocketed up the fence and he just stuck his nose in it. LOL.
My favorite memory was the fisrt time I ever rode a cutter when I was a 13 years old.
It was my buckskin mare that my mother and father bought for me. She was a cow bred mare and I took over to a facility in Tucson to see what she would be like on a cow. There was a cutting horse trainer there and he let me come in the arena and watch and was willing to teach me how to turn back for him.
I started to turn back for the guy and my mare started to try to take control of the cow. So the trainer let me try to cut on her.
I will never forget hearing him yell at me to drop my hand and ler her work. I did and the mare took control of the cow like she had been doing it her entire life. And I just sat there with a stupid grin on my face!
That was where the cutting addiction started>
Turns out that the old couple that sold her to us cut on her and she had some earnings. But since they were getting older and could not ride as much they sold her.
Ah, I can imagine that "stupid grin" all too well as I had one of those the first time I team penned on an ancient Arab mare, of all horses, and the poor horse had never seen a cow before!
She was game though, and willing to give it a good try, and I think she ended up enjoying it as much, if not more, than I did!
Yesterday's ride with my teenage daughter. We were zipping around a sand dune area in the desert. Important to note that we were bareback and evil daughter decided to charge up a hill and leave us in her dust. At some quirky point I simply slid off--the fun came when I tried to get back on, sand and sagebrush are not great steps. I'm not sure who laughed more, my daughter or my horse at my ungraceful method to mount but voila SUCCESS! I am thrilled to supply my child with the memories (sigh)
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