NOTE: ALL NAMES (except for horses) HAVE BEEN CHANGED.
Fall and Winter, 2003
Fall and Winter, 2003
Amanda wasn't pleased that I had shown "her horse" without her permission. She ranted and railed at Dawn for days until Dawn pulled rank as Teddy's owner. One day, very soon after I had started leasing Teddy, I went out to the barn to ride my new horse. Instead, I was very surprised to see a familiar horse being ridden in the ring.
Amanda. Was. Riding. My. Horse.
I went down to the ring and asked Amanda why she was riding him. She created a very elaborate sob story which I didn't buy (basically, since she was leaving the barn, she wanted to ride a horse that was "trained" and apparently Leo, a schoolmaster, wasn't), and I told her to get off Teddy and that I was reporting her to Dawn. I did that very thing, and within a few days, Amanda left Wiley Stables and I never saw her again.
In mid-October, I showed Teddy over fences for the first time at Gold Hill. He was very excited and took off at a gallop. I knew I had to work with him on this minor detail.
Near the end of November, it was the final show for the Gold Hill series. This was my third show with Teddy, so I wasn't expecting anything elaborate like a year-end award. However, when Danielle sent me the point standings for the year-end awards, I discovered that I was third in the rankings for both flat and over fences. I was very excited!
Before the show, there was a minor mishap. Dawn was driving all of us to Flintrock and not even a mile from the barn, Dawn got pulled over by the police. He came up to us and asked if we had tack in the trailer. Confused, we told him yes. He told us that the trailer tack room door had opened and my saddle, along with several other things, had fallen out onto the highway. Mom rode back with him to get everything, and she got a ride to the show in a police cruiser. How embarrassing! The show, however, went off without a hitch. The previous year, many from our barn had gotten year-end awards and Dawn hoped for the same this year. She had a youngster that a friend was bringing along for her. He was a homebred who was born in March of 2000 - Bucky. He got a year-end reserve champion in the senior rider division. Teddy and I received several fourths, fifths, and sixths that day and I felt that we had dropped down a lot in point standings.
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| Ted kicking booty in an open GAYP class at Gold Hill. |
Surprisingly, before the jumping division started, they started calling the recipients of the year-end awards for the flat divisions. Believe it or not, Teddy and I went year-end reserve champions in our division! Now, that ribbon is extra-special because it was the last one given out, ever. Danielle couldn't afford to organize the show series anymore, and November, 2003 was the last Gold Hill show ever.
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In December, Teddy had a surgery on both ears to remove the tumors. A few days later at the annual Christmas party, Dawn announced that we were going to have a change of facilities. Wiley Stables was old and run-down, and we were going to move to a bigger, better barn right in the heart of Jamestown. We weren't going to be known as Wiley Stables any longer, but Magnolia Farm Riding Academy.
Spring, 2004
It was March when Danielle introduced me to a different trainer that could help us work with Teddy. Her name was Jessica, and Danielle had been taking lessons from her for a few weeks. I gladly went along and rode Teddy in a lesson with her. She was critical and told us that if we wanted to show in Short Stirrup at Steeplehill, we had a lot of work to do. I missed the March Steeplehill show because we were all getting ready for the big move.
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| First lesson with Jessica! |
The next month, we moved from Wiley Stables to Magnolia Farm. Teddy didn't take the move well and paced, screaming, in his stall for days. He refused to eat and we had to resort to throwing out his feed before it went bad. Dawn had invited a Natural Horsemanship clinician, Derek, to come and give a clinic at Magnolia the next week and I had signed up to ride in it. Luckily, a few days before the clinic, Teddy started eating again, and we all breathed a sigh.
The clinic was a terrific experience and I learned a lot and was able to bond better with Teddy. We started formulating theories about Teddy's abuse. He was very stiff and couldn't bend his neck or lower his head while being ridden, so we theorized that Teddy had been tied up for a period of time, and his spine fused. Looking back, that theory was ridiculous, but it was possible that something happened, because in the years I knew Teddy, he could never easily bend his neck.
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| Scenes from the clinic - Teddy was having none of walking across this pallet. |
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| Success!!! |
In May, Bucky viciously bit Teddy on the stifle and Teddy was in so much pain. He came up three-legged, and we had to wait another month to make our 2004 show debut.
Summer, 2004
We made our show debut at Steeplehill in mid-June. The week before the show, I had a lesson with Jessica in the new ring. It had no proper footing - merely grass. It had just rained and Jessica had Teddy and I working on grids and combinations. She set up a small set of bounces to a two-stride up a hill, and asked us to school it. Teddy completed it fine the first time, but as we came up to the grid a second time, I felt Teddy start to flounder. All of a sudden, his hind end slid under him, and he crashed to the ground on his side. I was luckily able to jump clear of him, but he was flailing and trying to get up. The grass was slick and Teddy started sliding on his side toward me. I couldn't back away in time, and then Teddy did something I'll never forget. He rolled onto his chest and then threw himself over me so that he didn't crash into me. I got up and helped him struggle to his feet. Surprisingly, he was fine.
Jessica was a bit worried after the slip and she questioned our abilities to ride two courses of eight jumps up to 2' and two flat classes. She wanted us to enter the 18-inch division. I wasn't having any of it and told her that I wanted a challenge. I had been showing Teddy in 2' hacks the year before, and she conceded. That weekend, we went for our 2004 show debut at Steeplehill. That show turned out to be a success, and Teddy was fantastic. We got several compliments on how healthy he looked and how wonderfully he jumped. In fact, at our first time showing in a 2' division, we came away reserve champions.
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| Picture of a picture - first time showing in Short Stirrup! |
In July, I was at a two-week camp in South Dakota. My friend Elyse went ahead and showed him at the TTC Open Show where Teddy won everything and came away English Open Champion. Three days after I came back from camp, I showed Teddy at the July Steeplehill show. It wasn't as fantastic as the June show, but I did discover a new love - equitation. The course was fun and the flat classes were challenging. From then on, I showed in equitation and hunters.
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| Equitation 12 and Under U/S |
In the beginning of August, I was at a week-long horse camp taught by Danielle. It was fantastic, and at the end of the week, we all went to a Sunburst schooling show. Sunburst is mainly an eventing and jumper barn, and it was hosting a hunter show/cross country schooling day. They wouldn't let us warm up over the jumps first, and Teddy was terrified of some of the jumps. Teddy and I gamely made it through the courses, being disqualified once. Teddy had slid to a stop in front of an imposing, scary orange monster, and I had went up on his neck before vaulting off to the left and landing perfectly on my feet.
After a disappointing show, we went cross-country schooling. It was awesome and a lot of fun. Teddy was terrified of the ditch and thought it would eat him, and as a result, he leaped over it every time (and consequently ran over Jessica a couple of times). He wouldn't stand in the water, but instead bolted through it, but he was wonderful with everything else. He jumped logs and chicken coops and tables.
We placed well at the next Steeplehill show, and we were informed that we were high in the point standings for the year-end title.
On September 11, 2004, we went to the MILA Open Show which was a fundraiser for the Davie County Emergency Horse Rescue. We cleaned up at that show with a champion in the Novice division and a reserve champion in the Open division. Two weeks later, we bypassed Steeplehill to go to the TTC Dressage/Hunter Show. It was my first dressage test, and it was Introductory Level Test A. We did pretty well and got a score of 60% and a fourth place. Danielle won the test. Danielle and I also went on to do the hunter classes, in which Teddy earned a champion in Short Stirrup.
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| First dressage test! |
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