My first pony: "Pin Me Please," aka Penny.
One of the best clichés within the equestrian world is that of the love between a little girl and a pony. Yes, it’s over used, and yes, it sometimes loses its true meaning as we assume that all little girls love ponies, the color pink, and at some point, tutus. However, when I look back at my childhood, and my life with horses up until now, I could never fully do justice to the love I felt for my ponies. That is, after all, where it all starts.
We become addicted to their fuzzy noses, their hot hay breath, and their naughty attitudes. Ponies are the perfect match for children because they’re just clever enough to test the boundaries of what’s allowed, but also smart enough to know when to snuggle. Ponies are the best way to get introduced to horses because they teach you the number one lesson of riding: when you fall off (and you will), always get back on.
My time with ponies was unusual for a number of reasons. My mother, bless her heart, got me a pony when I was three years of age, and although she might be regretting that decision now, I couldn’t have asked for a better pony. She was a fat bay Shetland with a big blaze, and her name was Penny. Penny came as a result of a trade with a neighbor, and because of that, the neighbor became my first trainer. Jenny was 9, I was three, and we would ride double bareback everywhere. When Jenny asked me, “Do you want to canter?” and I said “NO!!”, she told me to hold on and we cantered up the hill anyway.
My mother leading me on Sesame, one of my early teachers (you know you're jealous of my pink overalls)
Sadly, Penny escaped onto the highway a mere two years into our love affair, and was crushed by a truck. Lesson two with horses: know that disappointment and sadness is part of the game. I was five, and I was on a steep learning curve. My parents went out of their way to ease my pain with a second pony, bought from Harry DeLeyer ($80 Champion Snowman, anybody?). This pony was named Peanut Butter Pete, a moniker that I’m seriously hoping to revive for my next upper level horse. Pete was wonderful, a dark red with black and flaxen mane and tail, he took me to my first short stirrup classes, and I moved on to cantering up the hill on my own.
However, Pete served as my third lesson in horses: sometimes you have to realize that the horse’s welfare comes before your own heart. I woke up one morning to find that Pete was blundering around the paddock, extremely distraught and clearly in pain. As it turns out, the poor guy had liver failure, and we made the immediate decision to put him to sleep. I was heartbroken to have my second pony die in such short order, but I was quickly becoming a tough little kid, both physically and emotionally.
The next chapter in my pony book was headlined by a Welsh cross pony that we rescued from the underbelly of a cow barn in Opal, Virginia. I remember trying him and being completely unable to control him, and totally hating him. He was skinny, covered in mud, and had a terrible mouth. However, my mother liked his eye, and bought him anyway. Just In Time turned out to be one of my best ponies, as he stayed true to the sweetness in his eye and once we fed him and treated him right, he was a blast. I fox hunted him, I explored the entire countryside with him, and I did pony races with him. He was the master of the starting gate, and he would blast off way faster than any other pony, successfully winning all of his races.
Moonstar as a two year old, me as an eight year old
While I still had Justin, we went on our first family vacation to the Outer Banks, NC. There, we met the woman who ran the Corolla Wild Horse Fund, and somehow in matters above my head, ended up coming home with a two year old filly named Moonstar. The filly’s mother had been injured in a car accident, so she had been raised in captivity. Never have I met such an intelligent and unflappable horse, and so I was introduced to horse training at the age of eight. You can imagine that I used some unorthodox methods, but I tried to be scientific and was aided in part by my mother. I did take her breaking into my own hands when I secretly hopped on her bareback in the field one night, but to my pleasure she didn’t care in the slightest. Lesson four in horses: sometimes a good horse can make you look like you know what you’re doing.
Justin moved on to be a lead-line pony for a little girl in New York (she still has him and sends me pictures), and I happened upon my fifth and final pony out of pure luck. My parents were selling a farm out in Somerset, VA, and I tagged along one weekend because there were ponies and the owners let me play in the fields. There was one pony who was stunning, a black mare with a white stripe and three white socks, but she was completely un-touchable and impossible to catch. The owner told me, “If you can catch her, and manage to ride her, you can have her.” At the age of eleven, this sounded like a challenge that I was into, so I spent three hours in that field attempting to lure that pony towards me. I finally got close enough that I was able to reach around another pony and quickly scratch the black mare’s belly button, effectively paralyzing her. A stroke of genius befitting an eleven year old, I think.
Hershey’s Special Dark, as I named her, was bought for the grand price of $5 out of my savings account, and boasted royal Westphalian bloodlines with a grand-sire who competed in Madison Square Garden in the Grand Prix classes. However, she remained impossible to catch, and was at least 80% un-broke. The first year that I had her, I was unable to canter at all. When I asked for the canter, she would trot like a standardbred, and then break into a pure gallop and bolt around the arena/field/general area for what seemed like hours until she would become exhausted and grind to a halt. If I was lucky enough to steer her towards a jump, she usually was so terrified that we ended up going opposite directions.
I knew rust breeches were stylish before I even knew that fashion was a thing
Hershey’s first lesson to me was that of perseverance. That pony was one of the toughest nuts to crack, but once I did, she was my very first introduction to Eventing, and she won every competition. I learned that to give her confidence over jumps, I had to be 110% committed to each and every one, and ride to the best of my abilities instead of just accepting defeat. I learned a little bit about Dressage, as the mare was a very fancy mover and quite capable of going on the bit. When I outgrew her, I realized that she would never be emotionally stable enough to bond with another rider, and she remains at my house today, fulfilling the duties of the bossy babysitter who kicks all the giant warmbloods’ butts. Some horses have one person, and that’s all they can handle.
To me, each pony was not only an adorable fuzzy companion, but a serious teacher. My lifestyle as an only child who lives in the country surrounded by horses, dogs and cats means that my lessons on life were mostly learned outside the classroom, and generally not from the influence of other people. Ponies represent not just the cliché that the rest of the world imagines, but something much deeper and more important. They help you find your grit, your determination, your emotional survival skills, as well as your love.
If you’ve managed to read this whole memoir on ponies, and have a wonderful pony story to share, send it to me at [email protected]!
