My horsey story

[thereadinghorse]

After @HorsesAreCool opened this topic (Finding it difficult to fully get into Dressage the 'proper' way, any advice?) and encouraged me to write down my story, I started typing, but soon realised this will be to much to post into her topic. So I created my own thread to tell you my horsey story, which is acutally quite long

Some facts: I’m 29, have ridden all my life, had ponys when I was younger. I was mostly hacking or to be more correct: galopping around and jumping logs I found They got sold when I was twelve, I moved from my mom to my dad (divorced) and started riding in a riding school. After a few years I got stuck, my trainer got injured, left the school and the new trainer didn’t teach me a thing. In addition I was unhappy about the condition the horses and tack was in and hated, that I couldn’t do a thing about it. I begged my dad to buy me a horse, but he refused. Got my first real bf at 15 and quit riding for a little over a year. Missed it much and looked for part leases.

After a few different lease horses I settled with a hanoverian gelding named Collin. I liked him a lot, but unfortunately I had no access to a trainer, so I was really stuck with my riding and I was desperate to improve. But as I was currently doing my graduation (Abitur, that’s after twelve years of german Gymnasium and you need to pass this to be able to go to university) I had no financial resources to buy a horse.

Collin:

But I’m a dreamer, so I kept searching selling plattforms on a daily basis to a point where I knew each and every horse that was sold So I played with the filters. Looked for very old horses, very young horses, expensive horses, cheap horses. Just every kind of filter you could alter, I altered. Only the breed (warmbloods) stayed the same, as this is my favourite kind of horse.

And there she was. Contendra. The pictures were not really impressive. The description was even less impressive. “Selling broodmare due to downsizing”. That was basically it. So WHY did she catch my eye? She was a nice height (15.2h), seal brown as Collin (my lease) and actually his half sister.

So, yeah. Those pictures weren’t really saying anything and I did not have any resources, to buy her. So why bother. But I kept thinking about her and out of pure curiosity I wrote an SMS to the mobile number displayed and asked, if this mare could be a riding horse instead of a broodmare.

I was in shock, when my phone rang and the seller (actually her breeder) was on the phone. I DIDN’T want to buy a horse. I COULDN’T buy a horse. Yet I talked to him. He told me, she had not been ridden, never left the farm, he bred her himself, she had two colts, than didn’t get pregnant any more. No he’s downsizing and this is why she had to go and was going for the low price of 1000€. She wasn’t ill or anything, but he couldn’t guarantee, if she’d be okay to be ridden. Never tried. Never longed her or anything else. Barely every touched her. Ah, and if I was looking for a horse to cuddle or something, she’s the wrong one. “She’s skeptical!” were his exact words.

Long story short: I hang up and was left with the feeling, that I had to buy this horse. Although she was NOT what I wanted. Apart from her breed (hanoverian) there’s nothing, that matched my criterias. I wanted a gelding, not a mare. I loved chestnuts, didn’t like bays or browns. Wanted a solid trained horse to start riding immediately. Obviously she didn’t fit. Apart from the fact, that I couldn’t afford a horse. But the nagging thought, that I needed to buy her lingered. I talked to my bf about that. (Been together since 2013, story started in mid 2014). Talked to my mom. Not to my dad and his wife, were I had been living until I moved out in 2013. And… finally called the seller again.

“Is the mare still available?”
“Yes. Nobody wants her!”
“Oh. Uhm. I’m interested. But I have quite a few hours drive (8h) and I wouldn’t want to come look at her, if she’s ill or something. Could we do a ppe?”
“Yes, of course. There’s a vet center nearby. I can bring her there for a ppe!”
“Yeah, that would be great!”

God, I was so nervous. The exam took place like 2 weeks later (July 2014). I waited an eternity for that phone call. Finally the vet called and gave green lights. She had nice x-rays of ther feet and did well in the lameness exam. Fast forward another 3 weeks and I was on my way up north to see her.

The seller showed us his barn. It was - frankly - a mess. He had about 40 horses, which he all cared for himself. No stablehand. Only his wife. He worked full time, so the horses were fed and that’s it. Stables were dirty. Except those in the part of the barn where my mare was. But her stable was so dark (in August) that I coudn’t tell if the horse next to her was bay, chestnut or black (turned out chestnut). He lead her to the arena, she ran around like a crazy giraffe and acted like she’d never been to this arena despite living her entire 10 years of life at this barn. But I fell in love with her that day. She was acutally much prettier than I expected from the photos and after running around I tied her and tried to groom her a bit. She was okay with me touching her everywhere although she clearly wasn’t used to being groomed a lot.

Fast forward: I bought her and brought her home.

First day:

So, I’ll pause here. Because this gets VERY long! I hope, some of you liked reading it and I’ll be posting more of our story soon.

[HorsesAreCool]

Thank you for posting the beginning of your story!!! I look forward to the rest of the journey. Also, what a beautiful mare.

It’s funny because my own 10 year old green mare I had mentioned to you also wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. She was way larger than I intended (just under 16.3) and I had never met an Andalusian in real life. She was half Andalusian and half Percheron. She was much greener than I initially wanted (she didn’t even know the cue for canter lol). And I also wanted a gelding. I also originally bought her with the thought of bringing her into Hunters over fences, since she was very calm and even.

Sometimes horses just have a way of finding you haha. Turns out, my mare wanted to do Dressage and looked at jumps in disgust lol. Turns out, I also need her to be way more forward now. Turns out, she actually is built better for dressage since she’s uphill and takes more from her Andalusian side.

Looking back, I almost bought another horse before I met my mare. He was a gelding. But he failed the PPE. I would have bought him had he passed. My trainer said to me the other day, “You remember that gelding? Thank god you didn’t buy him, he was made for Hunters through and through.” While any horse can do dressage, my trainer is definitely correct in that it would have been a MUCH harder journey with that gelding than the mare I ended up with.

Sometimes, things just have a weird way in working themselves out. That’s why it’s so fun to read these stories!

[HPFarmette]

Really enjoyed your story.

[whhisperbaby11]

Yea, I am looking forward to the rest of your story. I, too, never ended up with the horse I set out to find, but always ended up with the horse that I needed. I think she is lovely.

[Lunabear1988]

Eager to read more.

[OceansAway]

Love your story so far and can’t wait to read more!

[CanteringCarrot]

Thoroughly enjoyed your story so far, can’t wait for the rest!

[thereadinghorse]

Thanks for all of you, who read the first part. I’m writing the next part now. Not too long, cause it’s late (1:37 at night). But y’all asked so nice, so here it comes.

I boarded my mare at the same barn, where Collin, my former lease was boarded. Just a little barn, no real arena. Neither outdoor, nor indoor. No professional trainers around. Just some people hacking mostly. In retrospective, this was absolutely the wrong barn for us. But I knew the people and that’s basically the reason, why I boarded there.

The first few days I was getting to know her. She was very confused as to why this strange girl was showing up every day. To be honest, she hated it. She wore her halter all day at her breeder, but I put it off, because I hate horses being haltered all day. She wasn’t quite used to being haltered, so she kept running away, when I tried. So the first days I always had to catch her in her stable. She was spinning around and I was feeling stupid. After a few days I found out, that I could swing the rope over her neck and this would stop her immediately from running/spinning further and I was able to halter her.

But she’d not be a mare, if it would be that easy After getting her haltered, I tried to lead her to the grooming area. But she said nope. She refused to walk out her stable. God, I felt stupid again. There I was, new horse owner and I wasn’t even able to halter or lead this stubborn animal. After convincing her to leave her stable, she stopped every third step in the hallway (ah, help… I have no clue how to call this correctly). It was annoying and embarrasing. But I was very hesitant with any kind of force on her, cause I knew, she didn’t know a thing about being a riding horse. In retrospective, she knew A LOT about how to NOT be a riding horse

I got her to the grooming area somehow and grooming in general was okay. She didn’t like to be touched in her face. She doesn’t like it until today. She’s not head shy (is this a term?), but she wants to be touched HER way and this includes touching the right parts of her face the right way. The only thing really annoying was picking up hooves. She did lift the hoof, but she put it down after like 5 seconds. You could almost hear her voice “5 seconds is enough!”. If you tried holding her foot any longer, she just ripped it out your hands and placed it gracefully back on the ground.

After the third day playing fetch and “donkey won’t come out his stable” my barn owner couldn’t watch me struggle anymore, grabbed a halter and slapped her butt (not hard, no addionally force added apart from gravity). I felt bad for my poor horse. She walked out her stable immeaditaly. Not scared or something. Her look gave more of a “ahh, this woman is no one to fuss with” and after this incident she never again refused leaving her stable But of course she stopped every fifth step on the alley.

Fast forward a few weeks in, we both settled in our new daily routine. I started to introduce tack to her. She had never worn anything apart from a halter and a bridle two times when being on a “foal show” with her two foals. So I introduced the bridle, boots and rugs and started her on a girth.

Introducing the bridle was… crap. She was okay with being tacked up. But when I would remove the bridle, she wouldn’t open her teeth and then started panicking when the bit touched her front teeth, reflectory biting her teeth together even stronger. I had quite a few incidents, where she started to rear out of panic. Not like she really reared, but she raised her head quickly and tried to get away from the “evil bit”. This was the first real challenge I faced. I solved it by opening the cheek piece and “helping” her out the bit by actually removing it from her mouth. Always trying not to touch her teeth. She got a treat after that. (DISCLAIMER: Treats is a difficult topic. I don’t feed treats to every horse. She is a horse, that is 0% food oriented. She does not plea for treats at all, apart from looking at you interested. So I managed a lot of things with treats. But she will refuse treats, when stressed too much.) She finally got better on the bit removing and we finally solved this. It took a few weeks to be honest. But we somehow got over it.

At the same time I had started lunging her. The first few attempts where a little bit difficult. We didn’t have a roundpen, just a square “arena”, so I needed to use a lunge line. At first she had some difficulties to get, that she needed to walk a circle, but I managed to explain it to her on my own, with no additional help. After we mastered this, I started lunging her with the saddle. Only to face the next challenge. I was using a dressage saddle. (I am riding english.) But she was soo scared by the stirrups banging around. I removed them the first days and after she really panicked, I tied them to the girth. To be fair, those damn stirrups were really smacking her. But she got used to it.

Whilst I was doing all this stuff, I was looking for a trainer. I had never started a horses before. All of this was a first for me and I was quite aware, that I would need help with breaking her in. We had a trainer coming for lessons for another boarder and I asked her, if she would be willing to help me with my mare. She agreed and said: “Let’s talk, when we meet at the barn!”. Just, that we NEVER met. I missed her or she missed me or she was there, when I couldn’t come and she never really said, when she would be there. So I never came to talk to her in person.

After a few weeks I had my mare lunged with saddle and bridle and ready to be sat on for the first time. I decided to start doing some mounting exercises. I would stand on a podest and touch her everywhere from above. Slap (softly) on the saddle, move around the saddle and all the stuff, you do. She was wary but okay. I repeated this many times and started putting my foot into the stirrup and leaning in a bit. My bf was helping me, when I did this, because I didn’t want to be dragged around, when she panicked. But she never did. So I leaned in more and more. And than my brain farted

I was doing the leaning into the stirrup thing whilst talking to my boyfriend. And suddenly I was sitting ON the horse. I really didn’t intend to do that. But my stupid movement memory just performed the next logical thing and I sat onto her I froze for a second, but she actually was okay. I got down and petted her so much.

After this achievement, I tried to get a hold of the trainer again. I wrote a SMS saying “Hey X, I managed to actually mount her. I would really need your help soon. When could we meet?”. I got back “I have no capacities to help you until next summer. I’m sorry.”

Urghs. She never told me that in the first placed. I bought my mare in early august and talked to the trainer the same time. I had her ready for being ready around september/october. Wating until next summer (which is usually beyond may) really wasn’t an option. If you have a young horse pausing them over the winter might be helpful. But she was ten, so no growing expected and I didn’t feel that turning her away for the next 6+ months would be any helpful.

Left with no support I chose to continue on my own. I was 19 and I had managed to get this old horse ready in a few weeks. So I felt really confident. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll pause here, leaving you with a little cliffhanger. I’m curious what you think so far and what y’all think went wrong, if anything did?

Some pics from the first few weeks.

Getting to know other horses:

First time feeding her some dried bread. She didn’t knew this

She hadn’t been to a grassy pasture for years, so she was very excited to be out for the first time. Somehow some other boarder was taking photos this day, so I have pretty nice pictures of her first time back on a pasture.

Lunging:

[SFrost]

She’s so pretty! Very much enjoying your story. Looking forward to reading more!

[OceansAway]

My guess is something went wrong, but I have no guess at to what! Only because it seems like everyone has bad luck at some point with green horses, and thus far, I’ve been impressed by how smoothly things have been going. I would have had dozens of things go wrong by now haha.

[thereadinghorse]

So I’ll provide you with some insights on what went wrong. Of course, something did indeed go absolutely wrong. I think, with horses, somehting will go wrong sooner or later

I continued on my own. I mounted her with my bf holding her and he walked around with me and her a bit and I got off.

He once lunged me a bit in walk, but he was new to horses, so I didn’t want to try trot. After I had mounted her 5 different times and she’d been okay every time, I decided one day to mount her on my own with nobody helping me. I got on, rode around our square outdoor, rode through the opening into the indoor (a tent, as you can see in the picutre above) and rode one round in the indoor and wanted to stop and get off. She did very good, was steering okay for a green horse , so until then everything was fine.

I hadn’t been on for more then 5mins and just wanted to get off, because I thought this was quite good. I tried to slow her down by voice, as she already knew from lunging. But she kept walking. Not fast or anything. Just walking. I tried for a bit, but after half a round I decided to grab the reins a bit tighter and try to stop her this way.

[Disclaimer: Never ever in your life try to stop a horse with pulling the reins, when it was never taught how to give in to the bit!]

She was confused. She had never experienced any pressure to the bit before. She lifted her head quite high, opening her mouth, trying to avoid any contact. So far no big deal. Thing is, when you lift your head really high, you struggle to see, where you’re going. She got “of track” and very close to the wall of the tent. A metal wall with metal posts. And before I could do anything about it, my stirrup hit one of the metal posts.

KLONK

So, horses a flight animals, aren’t they? They absolutely are. She just took of like a rocket, sheer panic in her eyes. Not a real problem. A running horse is nothing to immediately worry about. A running horse in a 15m x 30m (49 x 98 feet) riding tent sure is. There’s one inevitable thing! The next wall will be close. She took a sharp turn at the first wall, which placed me at her right side, hanging on for dear life. But the very next wall, was very close. So she again took a real sharp turn and I placed myself bottom first into the wall, exactly hitting the horizontal wooden post, which connects the vertical metal ones. I can not recommend this. Not at all

Me flying into the metal wall made a huge noise, so other boarders where there within seconds. Catching my panicked horse and picking me up off the ground. I immediately knew, something was wrong, but was to pumped with adrenaline, to quite realise it. They put me back on my mare and lead me around one or two times, because “Riders have to get back on instantly to avoid bad memories to creep into their head”

After this I put Contendra away and started to settle down and realized, that something was indeed wrong. My bottom hurt so much. I called my dad, who is a family doctor and told him what happend. He - quite frankly - called me stupid (He didn’t approve of the whole “me having a horse” thing at all) and told me, to got to the hospital for getting an x-ray of my lower back/illiosacral area. [Disclaimer: Health care is basically free in Germany. Your work pays for your insurance and you don’t have to pay a single dime for anything apart from some medicine, but no charges for x-rays, mri scans or such things.]

I called my bf to pick me up and we drove to the nearest hospital and sat down in the emergency unit. They took x-rays, not finding anything significant and gave me painkillers (Ibuprofen) and said, it’s basically just a coccyx bruise and I would have some pain for a few weeks and that’s it. I should look for a medical pillow to give my coccyx area a bit of relief.

Next morning my dad called me. My surname is quite uncommon and my father was a known doctor in the hospital where I was, so it happend, that the chef radiologist looked at my x-rays, when he got to work the next morning. This is not a normal thing to happen. It just happend, because my name is somewhat special. And he thought, he might have seen something. To confirm this, they wanted to do a mri scan which was scheduled for 11am. Again, this is HIGHLY uncommon. You have to wait weeks for suchs scans. I had a LOT of luck, that I have a doctor in my family and the hospital was eager to not miss anything on the daugther of a fellow physician.

I went there, laid down into the narrow tube and got my mri done. In fact, one of my vertebras was broken. To be correct: my third scralic vertebra (one of the fused ones being part of the sacrum) had a so called “bone bruise”. So it has a tiny crack, which causes blood to pool beneath the periosteum, called a subperiosteal hematoma.

Consequences different to before: None, but I made some doctors happy, because they were right in finding something and overdiagnosing a doctors daugther

The doctors told me to not perform any sport for 6 weeks. I indeed kept to this. Of course I was really sad about what had happend with my mare; which was completely uninjured, she didn’t fell or anything. I really felt bad at this moment in time, thinking, that riding horses is difficult and me having so much bad luck. Oh, if I had known then what laid ahead of us. I would have sold her straight off and stopped riding at all. Good thing, I didn’t.

Any guesses, on how this will continue?

[OceansAway]

Loving this story! Please keep it going! I predict more blunders, unfortunately for you, but of course, hoping not! I think so many of us can relate to this story, which is one of the reasons I’m enjoying it so much.

[Foggy]

I am enjoying the story as well. Your fall sounds painful.

[atomicfriday]

Get on with it already! Lol! Also enjoying the read!

[TBROCKS]

Your horse story is a really enjoyable read. Thank you for sharing and please share some more!

[ParadoxFarm]

Keep the story coming! (Sorry for your fall, I had one where I landed on my tailbone really hard, too. This was about 5 years ago and it still hurts.)

[Spudsmyguy]

I’m hooked, can’t wait for the next installment. I got splatted against the wall too and fractured a vertebrae and tore up my shoulder so I’m familiar with that pain. I too knew something was wrong.

[Janet]

@thereadinghorse

she stopped every third step in the hallway (ah, help… I have no clue how to call this correctly)

Typically called “the aisle”.

[KBC]

Love this story, keep sharing

[thereadinghorse]

Thanks for all the nice replies <3 That’s really motivating.

I kept off for six weeks. But more because my bottom was really hurting. But as soon as the wait was over, I climbed back on her. She was a bit wary, but okay with me being on. I had 3 very okay rides, were she walked and my boyfriend walked with us or lunged us a litte. This was ride 7, ride 8 and ride 9.

After being okay with walk, I decided, it would be time to start trotting. So I invited a good friend of mine, who had a horse herself to lunge me. We were outside on the square arena and Contendra was doing just fine. She was relaxed and after a bit of warming up, we tried to trot. First time she only trotted for like 3m and stopped. Second time she trotted further.

And now there comes my second big mistake. She trotted and I started to post, as I was used to. And she panicked, kickstarted, ran half a circle and then centrifugal force pulled her feet away and she fell. I made kind of “flight roll” landing on my right shoulder, not hurting me too much.

And she fell on her right side ripping open elbow and knee.

Of course it was a sunday. I called the vet and he gave her painkillers and anti-inflammatories and left me oral antibiotics fpr three days. It was a PITA getting those antibiotics into the horse. She started rearing the second day. She always hated it being touch in her face. God, I hated life these days.

After this second incident I decided, that it would have been really dumb to continue on my own. So I started looking for a trainer, where I could bring her to for a few months to get her ridden.

I found I nice lady not far away (15km) and she was “Pferdewirtschaftsmeister” so qualified by the FN (equivalent to USEF) and seemed to be nice and competent. I brought Contendra there at December 1th, 2014.

But… of course… the fall and her injuries wasn’t the last thing to go wrong Any guesses? I really like your ideas and thoughts.