Vicki Martinez emailed us a wonderful story about her journey with horses and how she ended up with Ethop, a Selle Francaise gelding. ” Hoppi” has now participated with three generations of her family, from a Century Ride with Vicki’s mother, to taking Vicki’s daughter around preliminary. In 2012, Vicki and Hoppi completed their tenth season of preliminary horse trials together– quite a feat! Many thanks to Vicki for writing, and thank you for reading. As a reminder, all reader submissions are eligible for the Omega Alpha Reader Submission of the Month in which they are published. Have something to share with EN? Send it to us at [email protected]!
———
Hoppi, My Horse of a Lifetime.
One amateur’s story
By Vicki Martinez
My trainer once told me that if you are lucky, you will get one ‘Horse of a life time’. This is the story about how it came to be.
I grew up in the 60’s where we had inexpensive backyard horses. I survived galloping through the back hills bareback and unhelmeted along with my equally crazy friends and their mounts. The closest we ever came to jumping was over homemade contraptions fashioned from sticks and logs we would drag across the trails, a sort of cross country for the time. During my teens, I spent hours in the saddle conditioning my horse to compete in fifty mile endurance rides, the closest I ever came to any organized type of riding.
I was never without a horse until my acceptance to UCSF medical school at the age of twenty six. After studying opiate addiction in medical school, I realized that my relationship with horses was no different. I had to kick the ‘horse habit’ to make it through the rigors of medical school. There would be no time or money whatsoever for horses for the foreseeable future. By staying “clean” of horses, I managed to get through medical school and a demanding residency in emergency medicine.
After finishing medical training, life continued to be very busy with young daughter and a full time career as an Emergency Physician. I couldn’t afford the time for myself, but introduced my daughter to the horse world, wanting her to have a similar experience as I had growing up with horses. I became a “Show Mom”, and bought her an Arabian named Sham. Pretty soon we were traveling all over California, where the two of them successfully competed through Training Level in the eventing world. My riding addiction began to creep back as I would fill in riding Sham. My fate was sealed when my daughter had an injury that prevented her from riding for two months. That spring and early summer I completed in four novice events. My trainer said it was time I had my own horse.
Enter Ethop, aka “Hoppi.” Hoppi was a ten year old Selle Francaise, who arrived at my barn for sale. He was the favorite horse of Oliviere Fauques, a saddle sellier who had moved to the USA with his family. Ethop means “giddy up” in French, and he was nicknamed “Hoppi” by the barn crew. He had been a successful, open 4’6″ jumper in France. Now, sadly, his owner was selling him due to lack of time to ride him. Hoppi knew three movements: walk, canter, and jump. My trainer said I had “preliminary” potential and that I should buy him. I was hesitant because not only was having my own horse a huge time commitment, but Hoppi had a serious respiratory ailment called “roaring.”
On pre-purchase exam, he had one completely paralyzed vocal cord. Strider, the sound of airway obstruction, could be heard merely when he was walking. How could he ever gallop a XC course? I arranged the definitive surgery for the condition called a “tie back” as a condition of purchase. I actually watched the delicate surgery, but could not bear to hear him fall multiple times in the padded stall while awakening from general anesthesia. I was his first vision when awake and successfully on his feet. It was as if he said “Are you my mother?” He bonded with me from that day forward and I have since always been ‘his person’. Hoppi’s surgery was a success and he had no further airway restrictions. We started training in earnest once he healed up with our trainer, Andrea Pfeiffer, of Chocolate Horse Farm in Petaluma. At seventeen hands and 1500 pounds, he was the biggest horse I had ever ridden!
Hoppi has been my loyal partner now for a decade. We have evented from California to Montana, galloped the beaches, attended horse camps, and enjoyed many happy trails. There are so many memories and they are all so good. Hoppi has participated in three generations of horse women in my family. My daughter teamed up with Hoppi to ride her first Preliminary event. My mother and Hoppi performed a ‘Century Ride’ last year, where a formal dressage test is completed by a pair whose age total at least 100. Hoppi has been a very special horse to our family!
Hoppi is a master show jumper, with only a handful of rails in ten years. To this day, outside the show jump arena, he literally watches other horses jump and paces impatiently waiting for his turn. Once introduced to cross country jumping, Hoppi quickly became a seasoned and extremely reliable cross country jumper. We moved up to Preliminary our first season, and he has thrilled me for a decade, now flying around the courses. We even finished two Intermediate Events in Montana and California before settling into our niche at Preliminary level. 2012 marked our 10th successful season of Preliminary! Hoppi has been an amazing athlete, never having one lame step in our years together. We have completed two Intermediate, twenty nine Preliminary, one Star*, and five Training Level events in our years together. He will be twenty one years old spring of 2013, and is still excited to see that start box!
It makes me wonder if many other horses have gone more than a decade of successful Eventing in to their twenties – and that on a second career after stadium jumping his first decade. Hoppi has been a rock for me through the highs and lows of life, always encouraging life’s important qualities: discipline, commitment, courage, trust, humility, and most of all, balance. I am incredibly fortunate to have been blessed with Hoppi “My Horse of a Lifetime!”
Photo credit: Tass Photography
