Introduction part 2

My horse's name is High Cotton.  Us Southerners grew up knowing the phrase “walking in high cotton”, meaning you have been very blessed.  He is a 12-year-old OTT Thoroughbred, 16’1 – on the slight side for my 5’10” long-legged frame. He has an expressive, kind eye. He is super eager to please and he comes to me in the pasture as if he is actually glad to see me! He melts my heart.

Lesley knows him better than I do because she coached his previous owner who evented him at BN a gazillion times.  She says he is intelligent and athletic.  He is quick on his feet, very sensitive to the aids (when he is paying attention) and likes to go fast.  He is a very calm horse but can get revved up when his rider makes him nervous.  He is brave and trustworthy over fences and out on hacks, has schooled up to training level and absolutely loves to jump.  He doesn’t really buck or rear or bolt but has offered to express himself in those ways more recently!

Cotton is not perfect, however.  He is unbalanced.  He runs through the aids, especially when he gets missile lock on a jump or when he thinks he knows where we’re going.  He has a weak back and weak stifles.  He leans on his forehand.  He has tiny feet with very little sole – in fact he was lame for a good portion of the time I’ve known him because of poor farriery but Lesley introduced me to Bill Reed who has worked wonders on his feet!  Awesome, amazing farrier.  He is moving to Florida.

So… in spite of his weaknesses, with his sound feet, I assumed I would pick up where his previous rider left off and make our eventing debut this May.  Lesley kept telling me that he liked to get strong on XC so I figured that if I could just learn how to slow him down when I wanted to, we’d be fine! 

The barn where we were did not have any open land to practice galloping him – or more importantly, stopping him – so we moved to another barn with acres and acres of land, a small XC course and large stadium arena – absolutely gorgeous!  That was 7 weeks ago.

Lesley put us on a conditioning schedule and I got to work getting ready for our event in 3 months!  The first couple of weeks were kind of dicey.  He was excited about his new surroundings and wide-open vistas.  He would trot around with his head straight up in the air, looking all around, taking in his new home. We didn’t get much accomplished.  I waited for him to settle in. 

Because he had gotten a little ring sour at his last barn, I rode him out in the open to give him a fresh take on his job.  We did some brief canter circles (never straight!) when he was the most calm but when I tried working him in the jumping arena for the first time he got all wound up again.  He began to leap and buck at the canter and have quite a bit of fun!  His head remained at “up-periscope” and he continued to ignore me.  I wasn’t getting anywhere – and fast!

Now, this horse is very well traveled and I had never known him to be so affected by his surroundings before – what in the world was going on?!  I had ridden that horse for a year before I bought him and had never had him act like this.  Since we had moved barns he had reinvented himself!  Was it the new, green grass?  Was he just beginning to really feel good for the first time in a long time – his feet weren’t sore, his back was getting stronger, he had saddles that fit?  Because of the way he kept eyeing those jumps I decided all he needed was to burn some energy going over them every week and all would be back to normal. 

I learned that optimism only takes you so far.