Now, you need to remember that I did not have a horse growing up. I rode everyone else's horse. I would do anything to be around horses when I was a kid and I didn't get my first horse until I was 17. I got a yearling PMU filly named Gee Page. PJ was great, I loved her and learned so much from her. Unfortunately I also loved dressage and she was not going to be a suitable dressage mount.
And so my journey to find the best dressage horse started. My Sam, best boy EVER, competed with me to 3rd level and we would have gone higher if not for his incredibly unfortunate injury that cut our journey together far too short. He was by an imported German stallion out of a Standardbred mare. Here was my first incling to the importance of HEART in a horse. He had more than his fair share, for sure. But, even while I had Sam, I knew that I was going to need something even more to be successful in dressage. So I bred Ritchie.
Now something accidental happened in the last few years. When I lost Sam, I knew that I would need to find a horse that I could feel safe on, love, and just enjoy riding and some low-level training with. I purchased a horse who seemed to fit the bill exactly, a draft cross mare. However, she had other ideas in mind and decided that she was not going to be a safe horse to ride at all and even fractured my husband's wrist, jaw and bruised some ribs when he went to ride her one day. No warning from her, just piled him HARD. That was just not fun. Need to find something fun.
Ah Northstar! I'm forever grateful for the time I got to spend with him. With Northstar I got to learn so much again, I learned trick training, and I got a lot of confidence back . I also found that Ritchie needed a buddy so I picked up Jose. As luck would have it, Jose decided he was more of a lover than a fighter and did not do very well with Ritchie, who is very much a rough play kind of guy. So, can't have him sitting around doing nothing, so Jose would get started under saddle.
Northstar sold, had nothing to ride for a few months, got Jose sent to a lovely trainer and started under saddle. Now, here's where the wierd thing happens. All this time I'd been so super excited about Ritchie and what this wonder stallion will do and dressage and Grand Prix and WOW, but I've found that having a super sensible and workable young horse (Jose) is FUN!!! It doesn't matter if Jose shows dressage well. He will have limits for sure. I'm ok with that because he's got incredible heart and try. I have FUN every time I work with him, every single time. I really hope Ritchie is as much fun when he gets going or I'm going to have a hard time convincing myself to get working with him. Of course I still want to train GP dressage, I want to be able to say that a horse I bred and trained did this with me, but I really want to ENJOY it every step of the way. And I want my horse to be fun to work with. So there you have it. My dream of coming down centre line doing single tempis is not important if I can't pop on my horse bareback and go hack in the hay field. My dear Ritchie, you have big shoes to fill.
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