I’ve been mulling a bit lately, over the horse ownership thing again. I’ve mentioned before that I feel guilty about owning horses and not spending much time with them, aside from feeding time. I confess that it’s been about three months since I’ve ridden….in fact, I can’t even remember the ride at all, or when it was. I have a pretty good excuse for not riding any broncs, though….I’m pregnant with our third child.
So I’m really happy about the prospects of being a mom to another baby. I love my kids, and loved pregnancy and enjoy having an infant to dote on constantly. Our older children are six and four years old, so it’s a perfect time to welcome a third one, as the older two are so excited and will have lasting memories of this one’s childhood and growing up all together. I’m really happy for our family, and with life in general.
But I do get discouraged about whether I am doing my horses justice. They seem perfectly happy to spend their summer days in the shade or eating their hay, but four of them need more training, and they just seem to stagnate because I don’t do anything with them.
The yearling stud colt is the one who really needs attention, but all that I’ve done with him lately is trim his hooves, which he accepted willingly enough. But when we bought him, we had the best of intentions of making him a very laid-back, willing, fearless type of horse. And I had plans to spend a lot of time with him at a young age, walking trails, crossing mud and water, learning to lunge, stand tied, and all the basics a colt should have. Some of these he is naturally adept at, but without having the practice at an early age, they could become big road blocks in the future.
I have also been considering selling Daisy, and have talked to two different women about coming to look at her and riding her to see if they’re interested, but just haven’t had too much success with it. My daughter rides her on the lead line, and she is the calmest horse we have when it comes to trail obstacles or things that might startle another horse. But she isn’t the type of horse that I want to let my daughter learn on, simply because she hasn’t had the countless saddle hours that a horse needs in order to be considered dead broke. I would really like to see Daisy go to a confident teenager or a woman wanting a trail mare, because she would be really good for that type of lifestyle and would get more attention and opportunities than she gets at our farm.
Our appaloosa gelding Milo has also sort of hit a plateau with his training level. We have owned him for six years now, but my husband and I were thinking back and counting the times we’ve ridden him, and decided it’s probably less than 60 rides! For all that, he is a great little horse, very laid-back and accepting of new people and all different riders. But he’s a goof-ball. Still needs a direct rein. Still likes to cause trouble by being hard to catch at times. Goes kind of bonkers over the mares, if you take them away to ride—he will run the fence and whinny the whole time you’re gone. He goes out alone pretty willingly, on rides, but you have to kind of correct him the whole time to keep him on course, or he turns back towards his sweethearts.
And the buckskin mare, Penny, just hasn’t gotten the riding I intended to do with her when I bought her. She is fun, gentle, easy-going, but yet enough challenge to be interesting. She’s the perfect horse for me. But it’s been months since I’ve done anything with her besides trim her hooves, and I feel really guilty about that.
It’s made me wonder if my horse addiction has run its course. It has been a really busy year–we bought a new puppy this spring, planted a huge garden, took several trips out of the state, enrolled our daughter in tee ball, spent a lot of time at the pool, planned a big anniversary event for my parents, and I’ve worked six days a week for the past two months. Add being pregnant and extra tired to all of that, and there’s evidence enough to prove that I don’t have time to be a cowgirl.
But at any rate, I am a horse owner. So I’m committed to pitching hay twice a day, filling water tanks, trimming hooves, and checking for injuries. And I’m secretly stashing away my exuberance for that lope up a long hill for some further-off day. It will come soon enough, when the babies are in school and the puppy is grown up, and there’s no one asking very much of me anymore…then I hope to revive this horse life and build the relationships with my horses that I feel they deserve.
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Please hang in there. It is the hormones. When I was pregnant my midwife okayed me to ride as long as I was able since it was something I was used to doing. At about 8mos I was just to big!
Keep the faith as my horses also just seem to hang out these days. Outside of the work and the cost, I tell myself this is how they live naturally. Grazing all day and interacting with other horses.
Also, horses never forget. Their memories may need a good jog, but they never forget.
Congratulations!…and keep the faith!
Thanks for the encouragement! I’m sure I overthink these things at times….when I remember the horses I trained when I was younger, it really inspires me to work harder on the ones I have now.
I rode my old horse Rudy when I was pretty heavily pregnant during my last pregnancy, and got along just fine. I am extra cautious with my current horses, though, because they aren’t as predictable, and I haven’t put the time into them to be able to trust them as much as I trust Rudy.