Once in a Lifetime, Part One

Clumsy and uncoordinated, smart, quiet, faultless.  A favorite boyfriend?  George Clooney? No, my lifetime horse.  No one would have ever bet money on our partnership.  It was unpredictable from the beginning.  How did this lovely mare that would mean more to me than any horse on the planet fall into my lap?  It was not by design.  Husband had knee surgery.  My horse was leased out. Had nothing to ride so I started riding her regularly. There was no immediate spark, no divine intervention, no dreams that told me she was the "one."  My trainer one day suggested that maybe I should consider taking Sega and making her into my new show horse if I was willing to spend the time it would take, years, to bring her along. She was five now with a few local shows under her belt.  She hadn't set the world on fire but they felt it might be a good match.  So I said yes not to the dress but to the horse.

We started out showing at 2'6 and there are some good stories like the time she took out an entire jump, standards and all  at Culpepper, because she was too lazy to pick her feet up on a hot August day (she never did that again), or the time she was a wild crazed chestnut mare in Ocala, jumping all the jumps 4 feet (she really did jump that high that day) for no apparent reason (trainer was horrified) and she never that again either.  As a youngster you have to try things once, right?  But the more we did the better we got, but it took a long time like my trainer had predicted. Like a good wine, the seasoning just takes a while.

When she was six, Sega was injured (her only injury) and she missed the show season from May to October.  But we managed to qualify for the Washington International Horse Show that year via Local Day and I took my young mare downtown to Washington to jump around the Verizon Center like a seasoned pro, not. She was like a deer with headlights shining in her face that day but she gave me 110 percent like she always did and we came home with our first ribbon from "indoors" (and certainly not her last).

Stay tuned............