My first horse sized horse.

At about age 15 Dad bought a horse from a close by neighbor who agreed to keep the horse for me at his place that was even closer than Daltons was. His name was Larry Biggs and he was a Marion county sheriff. His father was a life long horseman they just called "Honey" Larrys wife was named Sandy and I really liked them both. I got my first full sized horse from Larry and Sandy by buying a yearling that grew up to be 15 hands or so. He was a 1/2 Arabian, 1/2 Qh, and Larry had named him "The Judge" after a spoof by a TV comedian named Flip Wilson who did a skit called "here comes tha judge!"

The photo is of my dad on a hot summer day getting a "pony ride" with me leading him a lap or two around the back yard of our Dearborn St, home. Apparently colored socks and shorts were all the rage? As you can see I have had to borrow a saddle for my peeps to get a spin on my horse. Even so in another picture from this day my mother is mounting by standing on a wooden slatted lawn chair just to reach the stirrup. Do you remember those? Classy compared to today's plastic ones.

At any rate "The Judge" must have been about my 5th horse, and this time it was really a horse! The definition of horse being an equine over the wither height of 56 inches. 56 inches and under is classified as a pony. You see...my parents not being horse people were more afraid of me falling a long way to the ground than anything else associated with my obsession with having to have a horse. So they systematically bought me ponies that I was really too big for to begin with, and when my toes were dragging in the grass they would buy me one about a hand taller.

This time I foiled their plans. I bought "The Judge" as an untrained yearling, and I remember Dad saying, well...that one is a nice size. Just a little bigger than your pony is now. Not only did I train my first horse from start to finish with "The Judge" a year later I had about a 15 hand horse! I rode Judge everywhere. At 15 I was exploring past the confines of Dalton stables and its woods and trails. I started doing a lot of road riding. Judge got very well broke to all kinds of traffic.

I actually got to keep Judge a few years due to not out growing him. I cant remember why exactly but it seems Larry and Sandy were starting divorce proceedings, Honey had died, and Dalton stables was being bought by a developer, but something unexpected came down the pipe and I had to sell Judge. He was bought by a man who was on the mounted Patrol, and the fellow was tickled to get such a traffic savvy young horse.I liked the guy and that made having to let go a lot easier. I even gave him the leather bridle with the horses name carved in it I had made in a leather working class at school. He was even kind enough to call back months later to tell me that he was very pleased with the horse and "The Judge" was working out very well for him.

From then on though it was only full sized horses for me. I now had to find a new option to continue my crazed obsession with horses, but I knew I would fetter it out somehow. As you can imagine I was pretty used to having to let go of my horse only to end up with another by then.Even so I really missed "The Judge" he was pretty special to me for several reasons.

The oldest memories

This is the oldest photo I have of myself at a horse show. The pony I'm riding was the second one I had owned and his name was Nightmare. A Nightmare he wasn't. He was a really good, well trained pony and the first one that taught me the value of a broke horse. You see the first pony I owned was named Spirit and quite frankly I'm pretty sure he earned it. He was all white, hyper, and a handful. Not only was he my first pony and I had to learn to ride on him, my father flat refused to by me a saddle because back then the price tag on a used saddle was 2x the cost of the pony. Board was $25 a month. Lucky for me the stables was within walking distance of my suburban neighborhood on the south side of Indianapolis near Beech Grove, In.

The place was called Dalton Stables and the man in charge of it for many years was known as Pic Dalton. His common law wife Betty Day lived there with him for many years in the little old white run down farm house on the hill. Dalton stables had several hundred acres, pasture, woods, and an adjoining unused property with several hundred more acres that you could slip through the ancient barb wire in places and ride on even more land. As you can imagine it was a 10 yr old child's paradise. Back then kids my age could disappear from after breakfast until dark without a parent's frantic worry.

I leaned much about horses and people at that stables even as a child. There were a couple of roping horses Speedy and Razor and their cowboy owners were a header, and heeler team. They used to practice team roping in the old run down arena at the base of the hill to the left of the huge many stall boarding barn. I used to enjoy watching them "doing their thing".

 I also became aware of owner neglect even way back then when a pathetic Tennessee Walking horse that never got out of his filthy stall went from healthy, to thin, to starved over a period of just a few months. I remember feeling so sorry for that horse I cleaned his stall consisting of a foot of urine soaked and packed feces. Being I was just a kid with no form of income of my own that was all I could do at the time. Even so I imagine the poor horse appreciated it.

The happier times were spent riding bareback through the hundreds of acres of woods on my pony. I spent about five years boarding at that place, riding those woods, and enjoying every minute of it. Learning to ride or die trying on Spirit, and later enjoying the pleasures of a well mannered pony named Nightmare that really wasn't. I even got my start in horse showing on Nightmare and the picture is of he and I on a barrel pattern. I'm sure I did not have a saddle and that hand you see is gripping nothing more than a handful of mane. 

A "loaner"

This is my hubby Ron at a QH show in Pine Bluff, Ar. a few years ago. I had hauled my Weiscamp gelding down there to show in a few western pleasure classes. With the over 2 hour drive down there, and the few classes offered for me, I decided that Ron and Homer my horse ( named after Homer Simpson) were going to give it a go in the men’s western pleasure as well. Why not, right?

Well…..except for the fact that Ron had hardly ever rode the horse before much less shown him. You see I do this once in awhile to my good natured hubby and he is always a sport about it. You see this wasn’t the first time. Ever since the one time threw him on cold turkey like that, and he won a BIG class he’s has been a real trooper about it. That time I was on “a loaner” all day. I used to show a horse named Scooter for a dear friend who used to board him at our farm in Shirley, In.

As it was that day with Scooter I had already won several big WP classes in a row. Ron just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time right near the exit gate. I stepped down off the horse and told him to “get on!” He looked at me puzzled, and I repeated myself, “get on! The judge really likes this horse!” You see Ron was supposed to ride his own horse in the men’s WP, but we pulled a switch at the last minute. Ron’s looked changed from puzzled to startled and then he exclaimed “but…but…I’ve never even rode this horse” To that I answered “ “He’s broke isn’t he? GET ON!”

So he did. Much to all of our delight, (me, owner Linda who was watching, and our kids) Ronzo as we affectionately call him, threw his leg over, put his feet in stirrups that weren’t adjusted for him, promptly went in and WON the big men’s WP class! He won a fair amount of prize money as well which he informed Linda he was keeping for the dirty deed we had just pulled on him. (Normally I gave her all the winnings to Linda help offset the cost of showing her horse) Linda laughed, Ron beamed, and from that point on he never again gave me that “are you CRAZY?” look when I slapped him unexpectedly on a "loaner”

Half the class

Three of the horses in this picture were mine, with three of my daughters competing not only against the rest of the class but each other. On the palomino gelding is my bonus daughter (my preferable word to step) Heidi riding Whiskey her dads horse. On the paint next to her is Cody riding Honey. and right behind her is Shelby riding her liver chestnut Morgan gelding Otis in English attire. (Shelby and Otis are kind of hard to see, see the dark brown ears, and hunt cap behind Honey)

This was the line up to call out the winners so considering I had three riders out of the six in the class we were pretty well guaranteed some ribbons. I don't remember now who won, and placed, but I think it's safe to say my clan got something. The really neat thing about this day it was just having all the girls at a show together having a great time with their horses.

Being little girls as they are, they were about as thrilled with the concession stand as they were with the horse show. Only little kids know why it is an over priced hot dog at an event tastes so much better than the ones you have at home. Fun times, fond memories, and great kids!

The story of Ruby

Sometimes people wonder why I become so rabid about people who don't feed their horses well, and even more rabid than rabid about the ones that don't feed them at all. Maybe Ruby's story here will shed a little bit of light on that.

I bought this mare at a low end sale that was frequented by what is known as "kill" buyers. She was owned by one of them. He approached me about this little mare and another he had bought from the same place that was in the same condition. They were horribly starved. Almost to death's very door. The kill buyer said they seemed really gentle and he did not have the heart to leave them with the owners that had done this to them. So he bought them ( being skin and bones they had no value to him) so he brought them to the sale in hopes that someone might want to take them on as a project horse.

Knowing my reputation around the sale it wasn't surprising that I was personally hunted down to be asked if I might be interested. One look and I was taking them both home.With in a couple of days we were at the vets office and we got the low down. Ruby ( the bay in the picture) was around 28 yrs old, needed what teeth she had left worked on, and wormed. Other than that she had been starved, and badly needed groceries. The other mare a palomino Saddlebred had a suspicious blood drip coming from one nipple, but was only 17 yrs old. "Music" as the kids named her needed another vets opinion. She too had been very badly starved.

While the Palomino mare dug in and ate like there was no tomorrow, Ruby the little bay did not. I don't know how to explain this to you, but the little mare had completely given up. You could see it in her eyes. She was just waiting to die. My daughter Cody was only six years old at the time and she for whatever reason latched onto this old mare as "hers" right away. Cody spent countless hours with the old horse, talking to her, brushing her, picking out her hooves, all while Cody's long waist length hair drug on the barn floor. Cody gave her shampoo baths, standing on a lawn chair she braided her mane, and brushed out her tail. She even started using up our expensive show grooming products on Ruby on a regular basis. Until you have seen it you wont know how odd it is to see a rack of bones horse with a braided mane and tail, coat covered in show sheen, and hoof black polished hooves.

Now under normal circumstances Cody would have gotten in trouble for wasting expensive show products we needed for the show horses, but the thing was the little mare was perking up from all the attention. You may not believe me and those that know me well know I'm normally on the pessimistic side so this may come as a bit of a shock to hear coming from me, but you could literally see the will to live coming back into the old mares eyes. I kid not. More than all the hay we could keep in front of her, more than the grain she was now receiving on a regular basis, the trips to the vet, or anything else we did for her, the love from that little girl is what gave that old mare back the desire to be alive and her will to live.

Even so, it was a slow recovery. One thing about Cody is once she decides she is going to do something she sinks her teeth into it and like a Pit Bull just doesn't let go. She spent countless hours with the old mare, and for months on end. Keep in mind she was only six years old. She had a regular habit of leading Ruby around the yard and letting her graze. When we asked her about it, she explained to us that yard grass was better than pasture grass and so she was making sure Ruby got plenty of it. Ok...I didn't know that. You learn something new every day.

About five months into this Ruby was looking a whole lot better. She had went from skeletal to just ribby. She still had a ways to go but the old mare was clearly making a come back. Cody for all her efforts was really starting to get vocal about wanting to take "Ruby" to the horse show. ( the rest of us already had horses to show) We had to keep telling her "not yet" as the mare was not yet looking good enough for a public outing. Cody was disappointed, but she understood. That however did not keep her from asking each time there was a show that coming weekend. "Can I take Ruby? pleeeeese mommy."

The "not yet" answer was the same for nine months. After those nine months though the horse looked downright healthy! To be honest nobody would have ever guessed what she had been through. It was late Sept that year and the local club was having their very last show of the season. Cody got to take Ruby. The old horses mane was banded, her body bathed from her nose to her brushed out tail, and of course her hooves polished a shiny black. Cody entered her in the child's walk and trot class, and well... the picture tells the rest of the story. Twelve years later at eighteen years old Cody still has that tiny first place trophy on her shelf. * now at nineteen it resides with her in her dorm room at college.

Ruby has long since passed on to greener pastures, but if I were a betting person I would not be afraid to put a big one down that there is an old horse somewhere over the rainbow bridge that is willing to wait a very long time to see a certain little girl again.

Why? and.. from Wrangler to Rambler.

Guess who? yeah...the dare devil one. This is Shelby enjoying her POA pony Wrangler on a hot summer day.  Ok so you guessed who, now the question is....drum roll....why? That I can't answer you. I have no idea why anyone would want to ride their horse this way, but she did and seemed to be enjoying it. Oddly enough from the horses posture it looks like he thinks it's pretty "ok" too.

Wrangler and Shelby made a great team as you can see. Besides putting up with her oddball antics, they were quite the team in the show ring as well. Wrangler and Shelby competed in just about everything. From judged events like western pleasure, trail class, and hunter under saddle, and even hunter hack, to speed events like barrels, poles, flags, and down and back. Fist's full of ribbons, a big smile, and a snug knowing look on a pony's face.That was Shelby and Wrangler.

Shelby finally out grew Wrangler, not in mind, or soul, or in her heart, but in body. She literally got too big for the pony and had to graduate to a horse. She apprehensively gave Wrangler to a friend of ours for her little boy. Tina's boy was a little too young at the time, so she loaned him to some friends of hers with the understanding she would get him back when her son was ready for him.

Shelby eventually found and fell in love with a new horse. She named him "Rambler" in part because it sounded a bit like "Wrangler" and in part because "Rambler" was her schools mascot. Shelby still has Rambler. They too have a successful relationship, and an equally impressive number of wins in the show ring. As this tale unfolds you will get to see pictures of Shelby and Rambler's history together. To all our horse friends, past, present, and future.

She grew up with horses, too.

This is a photo of my daughter Shelby at about 9 yrs old. The horse in her lap is not dead I assure you though it may indeed appear that way. The filly in the photo is one we raised from one of my Weiscamp mares who was a half sister to my 100% Weiscamp Skipper W gelding who's parents were right off of old Hanks farm. For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about don't worry about it, its famous QH pedigree blubber.

What anyone should find interesting about this picture is just that a nine year old child has enough of "a way" with horse's about them that a new foal would be so happy to be sleeping in her lap. For you parents out there you know its a tad unusual for the typical nine year old child to enjoy sitting there long enough for a horse to get its beauty rest. As you have probably guessed this one grew up with horses too. Shelby is almost 17 now.

Shelby is and always has been the dare devil kid. That is just her nature. If I was going to catch a kid doing something silly, or risky, it would always be Shelby. None of her three brothers ever caused near the number of skipped heart beats that Shelby has. Besides being a "let it all hang out" kinda kid with the horses, she carried that tendency over into other aspects of her life. She even played just about every position on the boys football team at her local public school for about five years.Yeah...I have even seen her on the bottom of a huge "dog pile" from diving on a fumbled football during a game. 

Anyway...along this journey you will see a number of photos of Shelby, well..... being Shelby. Since it is the theme of the blog it will be with a horse. So... let me offer up the standard warning early on "don't try this at home" Leave the stunts to the professionals. Do also know that I have as mom tried my level best to curb this tendency in my sweet little girl if for nothing else her safety. I have finally accepted the fact that some of them are just frogs, and snails, and puppy dog tails.