20 Years
So here it is...It's been twenty years.
Twenty years with my very best and closest friend in the whole world...
...My horse.
I wanted to write one nice re-cap of our twenty years together but as I began writing it very quickly became clear to me that we are no average duo and our tales are way to big to put into one entry. Today I will only tell you how we met.
I’ll never forget the day he “arrived.” I stepped away from my mom’s Chevy as Jennifer was pulling away in her car. She rolled down the window of the little beater she was driving at the time…something I never thought Jenn looked quite right in….she belonged in a pick up truck. But she leaned out and told me that my horse had arrived with a big smile. My heart fluttered once. He was here. Jennifer added that he was in the barn one more time as I hesitated and then she smiled at my mom before she drove away.
My horse had arrived alright. Features Fox had actually shown up in Kirkland weeks before and was kept hidden in the back barn. This fact to this very day boggles my mind. I new every inch of that farm. I knew every horse. Every rider….how did I miss this! But apparently given his current condition they wanted to get him cleaned up and fit before we met. Tom and Jennifer rode him…probably Jamie as well, and I know there was heavy blanketing and brushing involved. Anyone that has ever seen Fox in the winter knows what a bear he turns into. That’s not an old age thing that you see in him now, it’s aways been this way. His head every winter for the twenty years that I’ve known him has grown a complete halter size, and his demeanor takes a very swift about face. The normally cheerful, knicker-ie Fox, becomes a grump sometime in late November and doesn’t loose his funk until late May. You would never guess he was Canadian by the way he feels about the winter time. I have forever told him that nobody likes a grumpy Fox, and of course he just sneers his nostrils at me.
Socially, yes, I wanted a Quarter Horse. I wanted what the “in” crowd had. I wanted to kick ass and be awesome. My upbringing however led me to believe that only lanky hunters were beautiful. Something in the way of Thoroughbreds and Warm Bloods. I think my subconscious eyes had their heart set on a tall, slinky Hanoverian looking horse. Fox was not. All I saw when I gazed into his box stall that day was an average chestnut. Short. Round. Nothing special at all. But what did I know. I pretended to like him, because everyone told me how great he was…how he was perfect. Now in all honesty Fox wasn’t that small…round yes! But he is just shy of 16 hands. Which in 1989 that was on the bigger side for stock breed horses. The long, appendix movement hadn’t swept the quarter horse nation yet, so he was in fact good sized.
Fox and I were instantly teamed up to figure each other out. My first assignment was to learn to sit up. Fox needed to learnd to jump. He was an excellent equitation and horsemanship horse, good under saddle, okay in western pleasure, and fairly good in Showmanship. He also had been trained and shown in Driving and Reining however those two I didn't need. Jennifer had started him over fences and now I had to finish it up. I was more concerned about learning to sit up in my saddle than teaching any horse to jump. I knew Lynn and I could handle that with no problem at all. I liked his trot...He was smooth for sitting the jog, but had enough bounce in the actual trot that I never had to work very hard to post, which made no stirrup work easier. His canter was big but it toggled back and further between strung out and a four beat. I needed to understand the happy medium that lay somewhere in the middle. I don't remember ever watching him go and having any kind of feelings at all about his movement. I would guess that I was too young to understand, or too young to care about the one little aspect. As for the jumping, he picked up so easy that I had no concerns about it at all.
By May we had decided that he would work out alright. He was vetted and of course Pat said 'no.' His pasturns were too straight for jumping was his only fault. Regardless, my parents made a deal with Sherry who had purchased him basically to resell to us, and on May 10th 1989 Features Fox became family. The next morning we left for the annual disaster that is Jr./Am. in Syracuse. Fox was great and felt very seasoned under me as we showed. Sunday as always at this show, was Mother's day and my English Pleasure came so late Saturday night that we actually showed at 1am Sunday Morning. I won my class and got my first Jr./Am. blue ribbon just in time to give to Mom for Mother's Day. Sunday was also Fox's seventh birthday, as well as another horse we had brought with us (Do It Darlene) so of course, we celebrated with Carrot cake!
By May we had decided that he would work out alright. He was vetted and of course Pat said 'no.' His pasturns were too straight for jumping was his only fault. Regardless, my parents made a deal with Sherry who had purchased him basically to resell to us, and on May 10th 1989 Features Fox became family. The next morning we left for the annual disaster that is Jr./Am. in Syracuse. Fox was great and felt very seasoned under me as we showed. Sunday as always at this show, was Mother's day and my English Pleasure came so late Saturday night that we actually showed at 1am Sunday Morning. I won my class and got my first Jr./Am. blue ribbon just in time to give to Mom for Mother's Day. Sunday was also Fox's seventh birthday, as well as another horse we had brought with us (Do It Darlene) so of course, we celebrated with Carrot cake!
So this is how Features Fox and I came to be...now promise to return for all of our many ups and downs, for the trials and tribulations that pulled us closer and closer to each other over the past twenty years; My broken arm and his broken knee, trails rides and horse shows, Oklahoma, Texas and Canada, car accidents, spotted horse disease, poor young Garrett, dogs, cows, mailboxes, my teenage years (ug), lessons, college, tendons, coolers, and finally retirerment...for us both. I'm glad that I listened in the beginning when everyone told me how great he was for me. I'm glad that my parents made the deal. Mostly I'm glad for my greatest horse and my greatest friend...
Features Fox and Michelle Cramer May 10, 1989
Feature Fox May10, 2009
I'm sitting here crying! We love him as much as you do, I think!!! Can't wait for the next installment!
Reply to this