Cob Jockey

L. Williams and Aimee reminded me recently that while I've kept this blog since I was a senior in college, since before I knew what a Welsh Cob was, many of you weren't with me when I was terrified of jumping just a few years ago.

I've been with my trainer three years, and owned Connor for two.  When I was 21, I was overmounted in a year of jump classes at the college.  I was a nervous rider who got a late start in life with serious riding, didn't even canter until I was in high school, and so those two classes my senior year were the first time I had ever jumped.

First up was the Green Horse.  He was a good guy, and I eventually got so comfortable on him on the flat that I chose him for my senior Holiday Ride.  But he got strong, I had to stop him by running into the fence almost every time, and he still didn't know what to do with his own body over fences and I had jumped just a handful of times in my life.  No matter how much I liked him on the flat, jumping was so nerve wracking I replaced my old helmet with the most expensive one I could afford specifically because of him.

The Green Horse.  This, uh, attractive helmet was replaced a week after this photo was taken.

The Bolter was the following semester.  I would be merrily cantering along in a warmup and suddenly find myself on the other side of the arena for no discernible reason.  You also could never be sure how many feet would hit the ground on the other side of the fence you were jumping, or where you would end up, or whether you'd still be on his back.  I became paralyzed with fear any time this horse so much as put a single foot where I didn't expect him to.

I got switched to a safer horse after breaking down sobbing in the middle of a class on The Bolter because the fear was debilitating.  The safer horse was a saint, but the damage was done.  Jumping was not fun, and I did not want to do it anymore.  This culminated in my first and last IHSA jump round, in which I was the girl that made everyone gasp.  You know the type of ride I'm talking about.  I ran off to have a good cry behind a hay barn at Black Dog after that horrible ride.

The safer horse.  He started the process of getting me over my fear.

My trainer's first observation when she met me eight months after that was that it looked like I "clicked into place" in a jump saddle, and I was stiff as a board.  Over the next three months, she started my riding training over as if I was a beginner, putting me in a Dressage saddle so that my old habits were less available to me, giving me lunge lessons and working with me at the walk and trot exclusively until she thought I was ready to canter six weeks in.

When me and my lesson horse, a semi-retired Thoroughbred Novice-level kid's packer named Dillon (who is my age!), started jumping a few months in, he rushed the fences - and he was NOT a rusher!  I was so scared, I was clamping on for dear life, forgetting to breathe and just hoping to survive.  We worked on the clamping, and on the fear, and as I understood just how saintly and point-and-shoot Dillon was, the fear went away, and the rushing stopped.  My trainer's Dressage-over-fences philosophy also helped me feel like I was in control, and not just a peanut perched on his back, praying everything went well.

My old gentleman Dillon, age 24 here, now 26 and totally retired.  His one quirk is that my trainer is the only one who can bridle him, so we were here waiting on her to come out and finish tacking him up.

Without my trainer and Dillon, there would be no "eventing the Welsh Cob," it would be "flatting the Welsh Cob." There would be no taking my green pony XC schooling, and there would be no aiming for beginner novice this year.  Dillon is totally retired now, but I still take the time to give him a good curry every now and again, because I owe that old man so much.  Not every horse is right for every rider, but sometimes the right one comes along and does exactly what you need him to do at that moment in your life.