I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: babyhorseland is a wild place. It’s like being on a roller coaster where you definitely might die, if not from bodily injury then definitely from a heart attack. Or an aneurysm….
It’s like being on a roller coaster that in one moment is the best, most thrilling thing imaginable but in another moment you’re like wtf am I doing on this thing? And why did I walk through a valley of hot coals to get in line for this? And, why am I truly doing this voluntarily?!
The highs have been very, very high. Since our last Lucy Lu update I have backed and started this special little filly under saddle and let me tell you: she is F-U-N. And she is smart. From our last update in July where she conquered her fear of baths, she has come a long, long way. I went from being carried around like a sack of potatoes to bravely swinging a leg over and going for a pony ride in the indoor to cantering around on the lunge line and even going walk-trot off the lunge by Halloween.
I was on Cloud 9! This roller coaster was the best adventure that I’d ever been been brave enough to ride! Then suddenly a bolt flies off and you think, ‘well, I might die now.’ She definitely knocked a screw loose somewhere along the way and some of things I have seen are hard to unsee… there were days on the lunge line when I would watch her antics and think, ‘am I really going to get on that thing again?’ And these days eventually culminated into a harrowing and expensive journey trying to find a physical cause for going off the rails. Surely we can tighten that bolt and get back on track.
After many, many weeks and many vet visits and many sleepless nights we had treated her for everything she might have and ruled out everything else. (Here is where the aneurysm comes in… I had definitely convinced myself she was suffering some pretty terrible and incurable ailments). The emotional roller coaster was at its lowest low and I was not sure if I wanted to go around again. But gosh were those fun times fun and I hadn’t actually died yet and the vet’s orders were to ride the damn horse so… why not.
In the dregs of winter, mid-pandemic, and approaching the holidays, a good groundsperson was hard to find. So I found myself doing what every desperate horse girl does when she is in dire need of a groundsperson: make your husband do it. This sparked an entirely new and exciting route for the baby horse roller coaster: gently riding around the indoor while Beau finds his second career as a husband horse.
And as only the allure of babyhorseland can do, I was sucked right back in again. Each week, I got a bit bolder and a bit braver and she got a bit steadier and a bit braver herself. And Beau.. well it goes without saying that he was THRILLED to have conned a new person into his I-will-not-be-caught-for-less-than-three-treats routine and his new job description included sporting a western saddle and not even needing to walk into corners.
All this to say, babyhorseland is a wild, wild place where you never know where you might end up once you cross its threshold. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and it’s not for the faint of heart, but if you need me, that’s where I live now…
#greetingsfrombabyhorseland