Cob Jockey

Last weekend, I went back to my hometown to ferry a very special passenger to his new home.

Getting those ears into a selfie is no joke

Festus is my mom's 28 year old donkey, who we've owned since the spring of 1996 when we bought him as a companion animal for Little Red. He has a long and storied history as a no-way-no-how trailer loader - when we bought him, we ended up walking him the two miles home with 8 year old me on his back, and then when my parents moved around the block 10 years ago, they again walked him over. So as my parents prepared to move from southern Illinois to their forever home in Tennessee, my mom's biggest worry was how we'd move Festus.

Me and Festus, a long time ago

So I hauled my trailer over Thursday night, and first thing Friday morning, we got Jeannie and Blanche (lol) loaded into my parents' stock trailer. They're my parents' semi-tame no-shear sheep that basically serve as fuzzy lawn mowers.

Jeannie and Blanche like "WTF, this was not on our agenda for today"

Then it was Festus' turn. My mom's farrier of 25 years, who has actually known Festus since before we owned him, came out to help. My mom was a very novice horse owner when she brought Red and Festus home, and George has helped her through SO much. It was a poetic conclusion to their farrier-client relationship that he'd be the one to get him on the trailer.

We briefly tried convincing a hungry Festus to walk on for breakfast, but we all knew that wouldn't work, even though he had been braying his head off a few minutes before at the indignation of missing breakfast.

"I know this game"

In the end, getting him on only took about 15 minutes, with alternating bouts of muscling him forward and stopping to "let him pout", as George said. George looped a lariat through the interior tie rings of my trailer, and with me putting all my bodyweight onto the line and George and my dad's hands locked behind his butt, Festus didn't have much of a choice.

This is a sulking donkey

He actually hauled really well. If you've ever spent time around a donkey, you know they are just immeasurably smarter than horses, and I wasn't surprised when I stopped at a gas station to find Festus with his butt firmly wedged into the small angle of my slant, riding rear facing, and no indications in the shavings that he'd moved a muscle the entire journey. He found the easiest way to absorb the trailer's motion and stayed there the entire time.

Stopped for gas

Unsurprisingly, when we got him to my parents' new home, he leaped off the trailer without touching the ramp. Donkeys HATE it when the ground looks different, and I've survived more than one leap across a ditch on his back (which is no joke since he's built downhill with absolutely no withers!) But once that little bit of excitement was over with, he settled into his new digs.

Her most stressful part of the move over, my mom and I grabbed adult beverages and just hung out with him for a while.

One of my favorite ever pictures of the two of them!

The only remaining wildcard from that point forward was how Festus would do with the sheep. At the old house, he shared a fenceline but not a paddock with them, but here, he'd have to learn how to live with them, which theoretically shouldn't be an issue since donkeys are often used as livestock guardians, but you never know. 

Jeannie and Blanche napping in their new home

He spent a fair bit of time politely but firmly letting Jeanie and Blanche know he was the boss by running them off if they looked at him funny, but by the next morning, after it poured rain from 3am on, we found them sharing the run-in shed together like a weird new happy family.

The face of a donkey that hates being wet, and Blanche right behind him

With that, all of my mom's biggest fears were relieved. Festus' trip to Tennessee went fine, he integrated well with the sheep, and he did great in his new paddock even with his limited vision due to cataracts.

Drier times at the new place, still a work in progress!

For me, I was so grateful I could do this for my mom. She's given me so much, obviously the standard parent stuff but also the love of horses that has led me to pretty much arrange my whole life around them, so the fact that I could use my toys and my trailering skills to make this a safe and easy experience for her meant a lot.

My dad said Friday (after he saw me back a 20ft rented tow-behind camper down a hill around a turn between some trees last summer) when his retired buddies are bragging about their boat backing skills, he says he's got a daughter that can back a trailer better than any of them. I joked that he paid for my backing skills so he's earned the right to brag about them, since I had final exams in both backing a truck and trailer and backing a tractor and trailer in school for Equine Studies

And now, Festus gets to live the quiet retired life on an idyllic hill in Tennessee, and he never has to get on a trailer again as long as he lives. Enjoy retirement, little buddy!

Last weekend, my sister came to visit.  She was picking up her wedding dress, which I scored new on eBay in her size for $1000 less than the bridal shop wanted. #winning


While she was here I threw her up on Connor for a pony ride.  Despite having the same genetics and upbringing, she'll be the first to tell you she didn't inherit the horse gene from our mom like I did.  But all things considered, she was a good sport.

"Who dis?"

We walked, trotted, and did a little in-hand leg yield and shoulder-in.  Connor took great care of her, but true to his nervous nature had the hairy eyeball almost the entire ride.  I'm guessing this is something we could desensitize a bit, but also it's just who he is to be happier with a confident rider and predictable situations.

Also my "little" sister is like six inches taller than me!

I usually break up a long recap into two posts, but this year I'm going to do a quick recap all at once.  Partially because I procrastinated and it's now the 31st, and partially because I'm in a lake house with my college friends and need to get this done pronto so I can go luging!

Luging!

What Ramone thought of me on his back

Does your horse need shoes?
I specifically selected for feet that don't need shoes when I fell in love with Welsh Cobs.  It was in our equine conformation class that Dr. Marks she pulled Castleberrys Protege (Shae) out of the barn and said "This is a textbook example of a perfect foot, and this pony's breeder stamps these feet on every single pony she breeds.  Every breeder should strive for this."  That's not to say there aren't Welsh Cobs with shoes out there, there are a lot of reasons to put a shoe on a horse with good feet, but Connor doesn't need them.


What do you think of the barefoot vs shoes debate?
To each his own.

Favorite season for riding?
Anytime but winter, but if I had to choose, spring.  That first day after a long winter when it's warm enough to ride in a t-shirt, and you don't feel like you have to desperately race through your ride in order to make it home before your limbs freeze, is amazing.


How many shows do you think you've gone to?
Roughly 33 in college (IHSA) and 15 with Connor.

Do you consider yourself a good rider?
No, but I'm a dedicated student of riding with an appropriate horse.

Have you ever gotten into a fight with your trainer?
No way, I can't imagine that.  We disagree on horsekeeping sometimes, but it usually ends with her raising an eyebrow and dropping it.


Describe your dream horse.
I don't really have a good answer for this.  Connor could definitely be improved, but overall he's my dream horse.

Does anyone in your family ride?
Yes, my mom!  I've written about that extensively here.  My dad rode once, got bucked off and never got back on.

If you could ride any horse in the world, which one would it be?
Cardi, no doubt.

On Sunday my trainer and her husband invited Nick and I to watch Harry and Snowman with them at the Studio Movie Grill in Indy.  If you're not familiar with the concept, it's a full service bar and restaurant with chair side service before/during the movie.


All I really knew of Harry and Snowman before I watched the movie was my mom, who was a girl at the tail end of Harry's Show Jumping career.  She'd always say, "Oh I love them!" when anyone mentioned them.


By the end of the movie, though, I could totally see why my mom loved the two of them.  It reads like a Disney movie, with Snowman escaping his new home three times and running six miles "home" to Harry after Harry tried to sell him.  And Harry's constant admonitions to his children that "The horses always come first.  If you're hungry, your horse is hungry too and he can't feed himself."


Two things really stuck out to me.  The first was just how much Snowman was allowed to be a horse.  Not just a horse, but a family pet.  There's video footage of the children diving into a lake off of Snowman's back, and of course the above picture pretty much says it all.  The best Show Jumper in the country today probably gets turned out in bell boots, split boots and a bubble wrap, and here Snowman is being a jungle gym on his days off.  And he was just as happy doing that as he was jumping.

The second was Harry saying (paraphrased) love the horse you've got.  He bought and sold horses his whole life, but he always tried to improve the horses' lives and do right by them, as a thanks for what they did to provide for his family.

PC: Bill Ray Photography/Sidelines Magazine

It was just the thing I needed to hear as my hiatus from the barn ended.  Love the horse you've got today.

I have so much I haven't written about.  I don't realize how much my new job kicks my ass until I look at how my posting frequency has dropped off lately.  Hoping to fix that, even if it just means I draft a whole bunch on Sundays.  Enjoy some old news!

To cap off our all-horse weekend in September, my mom and I ended up seeing Bob Baffert speak at Indiana State University on Monday evening, thanks to a tipoff from Austen (who used to work there).  This recap is going to end up being total word vomit, no apologies!


It was generally geared toward college students trying to discover their identity and find out what they want to do for a career, but not so much so that it was annoying.

He took us through his early years of not knowing what he wanted to do in his life and substitute teaching after graduation because he needed money.  This was a pretty formative experience for him: he didn't know what he was doing, made up the rules as he went along, and actually did end up commanding respect from one of the most unruly classes in the school using some really unconventional methods - but he joked that he knew he wanted students that couldn't talk back from then on.

Then he took us through his start in Quarter Horse racing, and then to his stumbling into Thoroughbreds.  He had two main ideas: one is that you can always learn something from anyone.  He's a relentless information seeker, and came up in Thoroughbreds in the pre-internet days, and he said he'd ask tons of questions to anyone who would let him - successful trainers, not so successful trainers, breeders, pony riders - literally anyone.

The other interesting line he told when someone asked him what his biggest mistake was.  He said "You have to learn to trust your gut, even when other people question you," and then backed it up with some cool stories.  Stories from when he was young, and stories from when we would know him.  I can't remember which really famous horse it was (should've written this up much earlier than two months late!),  but he saw a horse that would go on to be Derby caliber at an auction, wanted him instinctively, and then got talked out of it by someone that "knew better."


Finally, he got pretty emotional at the end in the Q&A.  Talking about all of his Derby winners, how much he loved Silver Charm, and finally, talking about the big man.

My mom meeting AP, April 2016

Through it all, you could hear how much he genuinely cared about each horse just by the way he talked, but when he got to American Pharoah, he got a bit choked up and very emotional.  He talked about how he never stops pushing himself to be better, there's always another goal to chase.  And then AP came around and took him on the wildest trip of his life, achieving all the goals any racing trainer could hope to achieve and being just a supernaturally talented and kind horse to share the stable with.  And he said he went through some depression after he retired him, because where do you go from American Pharoah?  And how do you make up for that big of a hole in your life?  Little by little, the talented horses in his stable have inspired him to keep pushing, but he didn't pretend it was easy to have American Pharoah walk out of his life and into the breeding shed.

He said he doesn't get asked to speak much so he was honored to have been asked by ISU, which surprised me.  If you do get a chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it.  His speech was a little stiff, but he really opened up and was himself in the Q&A, and both were amazing insights into what it's like to be a top caliber trainer, and how he got there.

I didn't really need to do the last rated show of the year at the Hoosier Horse Park, but since my mom was able to come that weekend, I decided to do one day and have a nice confidence building outing before IDS Championships on October 1.

On Friday night, right as we got there and got unloaded, a big storm rolled up:


so we did what any reasonable person would do: ran for the nearest alcohol!


Once the rain stopped and the alcohol cleared our systems, I headed back out to get a ride in.

All photo credit goes to my mom!

Dressage in a jump saddle.

Didn't notice til writing this post that I missed a belt loop, dang it.

Gave my horse an actual bath with actual soap at an actual show, Connor's Aunt Mary eat your heart out!