THIS RED MARE

 

This is the red mare that brought me back. 

A few years ago after M and I had moved to Arizona, I told him that I wanted to get horses again. I think the way I talked about them had him convinced before I even asked. Now he is the logical one out of the two of us, so he said I needed to get the logistics out of the way first...like boarding, truck, trailer, etc. 

And we did. 

Then I found this spicy sorrel mare online. We went to see her, and I did a test ride. Looking back, I should have known she was probably too much horse for me considering I was coming off a ten year break from owning and riding horses. But in that moment she was everything I wanted. 

I made an offer which was accepted and her previous owner (who we are still friends with) delivered her about a week later to the new boarding stable. After that we quickly procured a horse for M and one that anyone could ride so A could learn to love horses as much as I do. I'll tell those horse's stories as well, but this one is PopTart's.

For the longest time I worked on just softening her up. I wanted her to relax under saddle. I could barely lead her around the barn because she would step on me and run into me. We worked on that for a long time as well. Now she will walk on a loose rein and her ground manners are excellent. I still get scared when I ride her, although she's never done anything that should alarm me. It's my own anxiety just making my life hard. 

We still don't go fast around the barrels because we still have a long ways to go, but we are becoming more of a team every day. I feel an incredible amount of gratitude towards this horse though. She has been difficult which has shown me that I do still know things and I may be out of shape and need to get my confidence back, but I do have the skills to handle difficult animal situations that arise. I am grateful to her because she didn't make my splash back into horses and barrel racing easy. She is making me work for it, and while it's frustrating I know that ultimately it will be so rewarding and so worth it. She has the talent and athleticism to be really amazing. It's just up to me to get us there. 

She may be as someone said "just a plain red horse" but to me she sparkles like copper in the sun and puts a smile on my face every single time I see her standing in the field. 

I hope everyone gets to experience that feeling with a horse that they love.