The Gift

My daughter recently asked me if I'd chosen a topic for my next blog entry.  Since I hadn't yet decided, I suggested she give me a few good ideas.  Her little face brightened up and then, wrapping her slight arms around my shoulders, she whispered, "I'd really like it if you wrote about me."

And so I will.

My daughter received her first saddle last week as a gift on her eighth birthday.  Those of you who ride know, your first saddle is a big deal.  You remember it with the same sense of nostalgia that you give your first bicycle.

Hartley Galaxy

I was fifteen when my mom and dad bought me my first saddle.  It was a well-broken in (some would say worn out) Hartley Galaxy.  I loved that saddle and had such a sense of pride when I would bring it to my once a week lessons at the local pony mill.



To this day, that dinged up saddle holds special meaning to me.  It signified to me that, while my parents couldn't afford to buy me a horse or send me to a lot of horse shows, they supported my love for riding.  That saddle allowed me to ride many different horses and ponies that, without my own saddle, I wouldn't necessarily have had access to.  When I outgrew my Hartley, I needed to get a job (doing what else but mucking stalls) to earn money for a new saddle.  My measly paychecks combined with the trade in value of the Hartley got me to my next saddle and so it went for years.

Decades later, I am able to give the gift of a saddle to my daughter hoping that she, like her mother, will come down with an incurable case of the horse-bug.  The saddle is nowhere near the top of the line, nor did I want it to be, and the gift of a pony is not going to happen anytime soon.  As a parent, I want my daughter to appreciate that riding is a privilege and, like most things in life, she will need to work hard and sometimes sacrifice to succeed.  In the meantime, I hope she enjoys the view from atop her very own saddle.

Now That's Using Your Noggin!

It's no secret to anyone over the age of 3 that life has a funny way of being inconsistent and unpredictable.  I mean, you can't really count on too much.  

Among the few things I can rely on are the following:  I need corrective lenses if I want to see anything.  Seriously, I can't read a paper without my reading glasses and can't safely go down a flight of stairs before popping in my contact lenses. 

Here's another thing I can put money on: My metabolism is slow.  It's plain and simple.  I know that if I want to indulge myself on tasty meals garnished with a nice dessert and washing it all down with red wine, I will have to pay the piper, so to speak, and spend a week or two eating twigs and berries until I can wear my jeans without getting rubs in obscene places.  

Finally, I know that in the sport that I've chosen, I can count on falling off every so often.  I learned early on from some horse person or another that "if you don't fall off every once in a while, you're not trying hard enough."  

Apparently, I've been trying really hard for the past few months.

Until recently, I couldn't tell you when I'd last fallen out of the saddle, which is remarkable considering how green Romero was when we started working together.  Towards the end of the summer, I had an opportunity to take a clinic with a well-known hunter-jumper trainer.  The session was hard work, but I felt Romero and I were doing quite well...that is, until we started jumping.  

We aced the first few warm-up fences with ease.  Then it was time to start doing some course work.  Well, don't you know, over the first fence -- a little white picket gate - Romero lost his head, panicked, and - from what I hear from others who were spectating - tried to jump the fence with his back legs first. Yeah...well, you don't even need to ride horses to know that just won't work.

Up we went and down we came - but in separate parts of the ring.  My left stirrup flew off into the air, Romero sprinted to the other side of the ring, and I landed - face first in the sand footing - somewhere in between.  It wasn't pretty.  I conked my head hard enough to make the clinician suggest I not get back on my horse.

Last week, during my lesson, I happened to come off again.  This time over an oxer that sits on a diagonal line that neither Romero nor I can quite figure out the distance to.  Well, up we went and down we came after Romero caught his front foot on the back rail.  

My poor horse threw himself in reverse, but couldn't help dragging the roll top element of the fence with us for a few steps before finally untangling himself then turning and wiggling right out from under me.  Boom!  There I was again, this time in the silty footing of the indoor.

Stubborn as I am and despite the mild ringing in my ears and general sick feeling that you get when you bang your head on a hard surface - I wouldn't recommend it - I finished the lesson and, in the end, Romero and I found a decent spot to that damned oxer.

Here I am, a week later and still a little sore in my neck and lower back with a tiny bit of a lingering headache.  That's all fine and good - it's what's to be expected, right?  But then I start to think like an actual responsible adult.  Two good smacks to the noggin in less than 6 months probably isn't the best thing for anyone, let alone a middle-aged mom of two.