Wednesday 20 March 2013

Anniversary

Today is my one year anniversary with Walker, and I'm happy to say that he is finally starting to feel better.  He ate all his grain, and he was playful and alert when I arrived. His legs were a little stocked up though from all that lethargic standing around in one place in his stall.

I'm happy to say that I actually got to ride my own horse in my lesson on our anniversary which didn't look too promising earlier in the week.  Although he was still coughing a bit and not 100%, he managed to give me his all - at one point, he was coughing while we were cantering, and although I was perfectly content to stop and let him cough it out, he just kept cantering until he coughed so hard he tripped himself.  Then we rested in the middle for awhile!

Looking back on our first year together, it has been quite the ride.  Walker helped get my confidence back (ironically by being bad some of the time!), and we spent much of the first year just getting to know each other and our capabilities together.  We showed Western, and we started jumping.  I was going to make a list of goals I want to accomplish over the next year, but to be perfectly honest, I do not have a set discipline and I like the flexibility of my all-around horse who is willing to try everything (even if he's only mostly talented in Western Pleasure).  I can have a short attention span at times, and I like that Walker will pull out all the stops to be my Western darling and the next day he will make a conscientious effort to pick it up and move out if I want to jump instead.

My number one goal with Walker is simply to keep him happy and healthy.  Even though I sometimes look at other horses online, I realized especially when he was sick that he is my number one man.  If tomorrow the vet told me I couldn't ride him again, I can guarantee that he would continue to live a wonderful life under my immediate care because it matters more that I'm with him than that we accomplish a bunch of amazing things.  In terms of his health and fitness, I really want to concentrate on getting him to use his body correctly, to really collect when I ask him, to stretch out, to strengthen those muscles of his.  This past year wasn't so much about strengthening and posture as it was perhaps about cardio.  That needs to change.  I want to do right by him and now that we are fully acquainted, there's no excuses for not taking that fitness to the next level.

Things don't always go the way we expect them to.  I will be the first person to tell you that Walker wasn't what I intended for my first horse, and the level that we're at is perhaps not as far as I had hoped it to be.  But Walker has been a learning experience that I simply would not have gotten if I had bought some old school horse who never puts up a fuss and simply does everything perfectly the first time around.  Because I work hard for every single step, I feel like we earn our accomplishments, regardless of how mundane they may seem to others.

And I love him of course.  He is an absolute goofball, a mare-magnet, and a social butterfly.  What can I say?  That cute face is just too hard to resist!

And whenever I'm having trouble of any kind, I simply remind myself: shoulders back, heels down, chin up.

Attempt 1 of the Anniversary shot
I can't wait to celebrate more anniversaries with him

3 comments:

  1. Glad that walker is feeling better! Happy Horseeversary!

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  2. Happy 1 year with your guy, I hope his health continues to improve!

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  3. Thanks! He seems to be on the mend

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