Time has galloped by

Amy’s first dressage show, with her trainer Mary Forck.

Not long after my last post, well perhaps a little while, Amy was at a Pony Club meet on a very windy, rainy day at Herron Park, and fractured her pelvis in two places. We had taken Maverick to the dressage courts to show him around, lunged him a bit to see how he would do in the new setting. People with dogs walking by, children riding their bicycles, and strange scary people popping over the hill from nowhere on the walking paths. He was a little alert but nothing out of the ordinary….

When the Pony Club instructor arrived the girls started some flat work in the dressage courts, bearing in mind the wind was howling and there was a constant drizzle of rain, and quite the chill in the air. All went well, phew.

Now came the jumps. The first one was good, Maverick was now feeling excited and started tossing his head. I should have noticed the signs, I did not:(

On the third jump, nice cross pole and then up and over the next jump, an oxer, and one big buck on landing and poor little Amy was catapulted in the air and landed smack, bang, on her left hip. Of course Maverick just stood there looking down at her. She could not walk. We fireman carried her up the hill to the truck. Of course I couldn’t get to the ER straight away, I had the horse to take back to the barn. Needless to say it was hard to see my little girl in so much pain. We had a system down to get Maverick in and out of the trailer and I couldn’t do it without her. Poor girl could not walk, but I picked her up and placed her next to the trailer so that she could help me.

Off to the ER we go. Take x-rays and they give her the all clear. Three weeks pass by and she is still not able to bare weight on her leg. I make an appointment for an MRI, and alas, we get told her pelvis is fractured in two places. Poor girl sat there and cried. She has a history of breaking things and spent two years with her left arm broken three times, and now this. All her hard work getting ready to jump in her first competition at Rebecca Farms went up in smoke.

Galloping forward to August, Amy got to ride in her very first show ever, she came first with her USDF Intro Test A with a 71% and third with her Intro Test B with a 68%.

backing up…why we bought maverick

• So here we are; very first time meeting Maverick and his owner at a hired arena, all by himself. Amy had never seen him before. I let her climb on him because he was calm and his owner knew what she was doing. Note his licking and chewing, a good sign that he is calm and willing to please.
• NOTE (Never let your child try a horse out if you are not comfortable and if it is not safe to do so).

• So now that Amy is getting the hang of a new horse, she is learning from the owner what makes Maverick happy, and how he is used to being ridden. Yes, I noticed his head tilting and I personally have never really seen this, have you??? Please leave a comment below. I have some experience training horses so I knew that it was something that I would figure out. At this stage his demeanor was more important to me.

• Here Amy has her arms out. Now I know that many horses would freak out for something like this. Another indicator that the people selling Maverick were honest and upfront about him. It was helpful knowing what made him GO and WHOA. As Amy took her legs off him, he stopped.

• AND…Canter! Poor horse is like, what do you want from me lady, I have this kid on my back, bouncing around, you have a rope flying at me, WHAT DO YOU WANT???? Ha ha ha. Come on Amy, you’ve ridden a horse before! But not a new, strange one with different go buttons. This is something we need to remember when our child rides a new horse for the first time, especially when it’s a young rider with little experience.

So Here you can see what we did to ensure that we purchased the right horse for Amy. I knew I wanted a versatile horse, one that could be used for Western riding and English riding. In the videos that the owner sent me, he was beautifully put together, great conformation, good feet, and as you can see in the videos above, he has endless patience, willingness to please, and put up with an inexperience rider. One thing that is great about Amy she is very gentle with her hands even though at this stage she was very unbalanced.

About balance…something we have all realized is that Maverick is like riding the gas pedal on a car, he tends to go fast and slow with a stutter which is not easy to ride, where is the laughing and crying emoji when you need it???? Ha ha ha. So on this day we said YES! He is the one for us.

We made sure to sign the bill of sale, the owner provided us with the branding certificate, negative coggins test, and she offered to deliver him free of charge. One little girl extremely happy with her new horse.

why blogging

Now that my daughter is serious about her horse riding, and the fact that we are horse owners, we all know that doing anything horse related can be expensive. My husband still deploys for 90 days at a time, he’s a wounded veteran who served 27 years and is approaching his 60’s. I know that retirement day will eventually come and I needed to find a way to make some extra money to be able to provide Amy a long future with her horse Maverick.

I have heard blogging can generate some extra income, so I am going to try my utmost to make this endeavor work. I would like to write about our horse adventures, trials and errors when it comes to purchasing horse equipment (before we know it we own a tack shop), ways to correct some unfavorable horse behaviors, supplements that work (and don’t), boarding facilities in our local area, places to ride in Kalispell MT, the list is endless what a horse enthusiast could write about.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog The Horse Buzz and I welcome any comments, shares, likes, and suggestions by fellow horse parents and riders.

about maverick

We purchased Maverick aka “Docs Classy Bumpkin” AQHA registered Quarter Horse, just over 9 months ago for Amy’s tenth birthday. Isn’t it always a little girls dream to own a horse? Of course, rainbows, unicorns, flying over jumps, going around the barrel really fast, ha ha ha!!! It’s so easy looking for the horse (one would think…) and purchasing it. That’s the easy part.

We were looking for a nice calm horse that was the right age for Amy, I have heard them say, “that if you take the horses age and the age of the child and it adds up to 20” that’s a good age horse to purchase for your child. Needless to say Maverick was 8, (we fall short by 2 years…ha ha ha). We also wanted a horse that could look pretty enough for trying show jumping, dressage, run some barrels and so forth, basically a nice all rounder. Well, we found Maverick and he was previously used for competitive cow sorting.

You now have this horse that seems like the dream horse, so calm, so chilled out all by itself in a large indoor arena while you have a trial ride, as you do, and always make sure the owner rides the horse for you first. Now the work begins! You have to figure out what makes this fella tick. All the true colors start rearing their ugly head. What was his past like? What accidents may he have had, if any? How is he used to being tied up? How was he fed? Was he on free feed on a round bale? Was he fed on a schedule? Did he get Alfalfa? Gosh the guessing begins unless you have a nice person who is honest that you purchased your new horse from. So here goes the experiment…..read my next blog post to come soon.

Amy and Maverick. Nothing like a young girl and her new horse.