The Year in Review

2012 was a great year for me to say the least.  I got a horse! And I love him!  And in keeping with everyone else's posts, I decided to do my own little year in review.

I have always wanted a horse, and when I got back into riding again a year or two ago, I had a plan.  I was going to wait until I graduated from law school or maybe even done my articling year before I got a horse.  As time went on, I quickly moved that goal up and ended up with Walker in March, 2012.



My first picture of Walker

 My first impression of Walker was mixed.  When he arrived, he still hadn't been ridden yet by my trainer (of course - I showed up probably 10 minutes after the trailer) and so my barn owner wanted me to wait before I got on him, just in case he turned out to be a nutjob.  But I had brought him carrots and she encouraged me to groom him and get to know him.  As it turns out, Walker hates carrots and is afraid of the plastic bags that I brought them in.  When I whipped out the carrot and the bag crinkled, he leapt back in the stall and nearly hit me in the process.  G-r-e-a-t first impression of my horse.

In many ways, Walker turned out to be pretty difficult.  Within almost 10 minutes, we went from a snaffle double-jointed mouthpiece to a super harsh shank bit with high port.  He was trained Western and he respected big bits and big spurs.  When I hopped on with no spurs, he started his first bad behaviour: body-slamming me into walls.  For a time, I don't think anyone believed me until finally I got my trainer on him and he did it to her - even though she was wearing spurs.  Let's just say that after you've had your leg squeezed up against a wall by a thousand pound animal, you change your tune pretty fast on wearing spurs and being over-gentle.  It didn't take me too long to solve that problem!

He was also super hyper in those days.  My barn owner thinks that when the sale went through, the previous owners simply stopped riding him/exercising him, and unfortunately, because he arrived with another horse who had a mysterious runny nose, Walker ended up on quarantine and stuck in his stall for a week or so after arriving.  That means that he had been cooped up for quite some time, and he had A LOT of energy to burn.  For the first several months, I lunged him every time before I rode, and boy did he have energy.  My trainer had to do it too because she found that he behaved better afterwards.  There were times when she would lunge him for 30-40 minutes, ride him for an hour, I would come out later that day and lunge him for 30 - 40 minutes, and ride him for an hour - and he would still be crazy!

After about a month of this, I decided I didn't want to ride him in the crazy bit anymore.  I decided that I did not have quiet enough hands for that, and because of this, "bitting up" had an adverse effect on our relationship.  Even though my barn owner pretty much said that a lesser bit was me taking my own life in my hands, I slowly moved him down to a Kimberwick Uxeter (still a little leverage with a chain under the chin, but not nearly as harsh as the high port and 5"-6" shank they wanted me to ride him in).  I'm now proud to say that I'm almost ready to ride him in a D-ring snaffle (I tried it out a little prematurely in the fall but I think we're ready for that now).  I'm also proud that I've been able to move down to smaller English spurs and that he's way more responsive to the leg than he used to be.

He's also not nearly as crazy, hyper, or misbehaving as he used to be.  After my barn owner told me that he had too much attitude for me and I refused to sell him, I got my trainer to ride him fairly intensively for about a month.  By this point, I had already cured him of the body slamming my leg into the wall thing, and although it helped to have her ride him those days, most of our progression has been because of me working with him.  Even my trainer once said, and I agree with her, that just because she can get him to do something doesn't mean he'll automatically do it for me.  At the end of the day, I have to be able to ride him too.  So although he went through a phase where he bucked once a ride or refused to canter one particular corner of the arena (the dark days, as I think of them), we've now pretty much fixed all those problems with only a few residual issues (mainly, Walker turning into Bruce and bolting during lessons just to piss me off).



I will never stop loving how fun it is to dress
up in crazy Western Pleasure outfits.  Never.

I'm really proud of my progression with Walker.  I tell a lot of crazy stories about him misbehaving, but don't get me wrong.  He's a wildly talented horse, and he's also a smart horse.  He has no intention of doing extra work unless he has to, and I think about some of his disrespectful moments as him being young and cocky.  We just continue to muddle through and I continue to reaffirm to him that I am in fact the boss and yes he does have to listen to me.  And once you have him, you really have him - if you know what I mean.  We did two shows this summer, and although I was a wreck for both of him (and less than impressed with his performance in the second one), I got a lot of compliments about him.  He won Champion Halter Gelding, and the judge pretty much told me that she liked him when she saw him, but the minute I hand-trotted him past her, she didn't even bother looking at the other horses.  Nothing makes a rider beam quite like compliments like that.



"I think I want to learn to jump now."

Finally, towards the end of the year, we started to jump.  It was a slow job because although I know he has dabbled in jumps before and understands how his body is supposed to move, he's simply not built for that.  But the sweet guy has tried his little heart out for me.  I've gotten some great results in the outdoor arena because there's plenty of room to pick up some speed, but unfortunately, Winter came too quickly for me and we had to continue our jumping lessons inside. :S  I had just about given up hope on getting him to canter fast enough to actually propel his body over the jump when Friday on a whim I tried him once again and he did it for me!  I was very proud of him even if we still need serious work!

This year has been fantastic for me, if not what I had in mind.  I imagined buying a horse that would be, well, more complacent.  I expected that I would have progressed much farther than I admittedly have, but the progress I have made with Walker has been more worthwhile.  I took a horse that my barn owner and trainer both agreed was "too much attitude for me" and stuck with it until we were a mean lean kinda-jumping machine.  I'm a better rider, a more confident rider, and ready to take on 2013 with all the enthusiasm and perseverence that 2012 has taught me.

I love Walker and I wouldn't trade him for the world.