Cob Jockey

Disco comes home next week.

It feels surreal. But also right.

Disco out for a walk in Maude's fruit orchards. She says he loves this drive because she'll gather apples in the cart to give them to the horses when they're done.

A lot has changed since he left. One year and eight months ago, in March of 2023, I was depressed, overwhelmed, and alone. Especially alone in my own head. When Lisa told me about Maude's inquiry and asked if I would be willing to send Disco north, it felt like someone threw me a life preserver in a stormy sea. It wasn't enough to get me out of the water, but it would help me keep my head above the water.

Came home from dropping Disco off at the layover facility in Kentucky in April of 2023 and cried into Connor's neck. With relief.

When I agreed to buy Disco in May of 2021, I was still Old Me. And I recognize now that Old Me was using horses to escape from feelings I didn't know how to feel and couldn't name. Horses, tack ho'ing, showing, planning training rides and throwing myself into work to pay for it all were all-consuming distractions that conveniently distracted me from my own unhappiness, which I wasn't emotionally mature enough back then to identify anyway.

So, the question is now, (and I have been trying to figure this out for the last three years), what role do horses play in my life now that I'm happy? And more saliently, where do they fit in around a significant other I actually want to spend time with, and his kids, whose little lives I am so thrilled to be a part of?

Best stallion ever, or best stallion ever?

The answer is that my life now is like a quilt woven together from a bunch of different blocks, instead of my hobby being one big all-consuming blanket. Horses are one block. Date nights and coming together as a couple are another. Sitting in the stands cheering for 6th grade basketball games are another. Working on the farm with my SO and then sitting on the porch having a beverage together at the end of a long day are another. And, happily, watching an eight year old girl discover the magic of horses and the joy of a quiet, snuggly pony are another. 

Mary giving my SO's daughter a proper lesson on Connor. I mightttttttttt have taken her on a shopping spree to the tack store for her birthday a couple of weeks after this photo was taken.

Which brings me back to Disco. I feel excited to have him back. I feel motivated to work with him. I feel fulfilled at the idea of building my next long-term partner. And I could not be happier to have to carefully plan out training rides in between the other things in my life that are important to me.

Let's do this.

With two horses in our barn, with Eva and with Pyro, I have been fascinated to watch the process of them learning to jump. Because, I have learned, even if they have talent for jumping, it's still a process to discover that and nurture it.

One of Eva's first tries over a vertical in September

The first time both of them went through a jump chute, they lacked confidence and didn't really want to do it. 

The first time Eva came around and saw a crossrail, she was like "NO THANK YOU I'M OUT"

Both of those sessions, although we ended them on a good note, I came away from it like well, that horse doesn't look like a jumper. They don't even look like they want to jump.

But that was my inexperience starting horses over fences talking. Because as it turns out:

They are both actually quite good at jumping. And the change in Eva's attitude from session 1 to session 3 was remarkable. 

Once again, I have Mary to thank for holding my feet to the fire on keeping things slow and predictable for them. We did the same grid the entire time, although it wasn't until the third session we put the back rail of the oxer up.

I swear if you were able to peek inside Mary's head while she's sleeping, this is what it would look like.

We did one session with Eva in early September, then another session one week later, and then the third wasn't until five weeks after that. The first session, she was just confused. The second session, there was a lot of "Okay, I understand what you want, but I'm really unsure of myself."

The third session, last night?

The moment she came into the ring and saw the grid she got excited. And I mean, EXCITED. She actually cantered on the lunge line, something I haven't been able to get her to do up to this point even if I jump up and down and scream and wave my arms.

And when we let her off the line, she made a beeline for it. We didn't even have to encourage her, and in fact, throughout the entire session, it never took more than a suggestion, a raise of my arms, a single cluck, to send her off into the chute. You could so clearly see that she understood the game and enjoyed it, even though she was still making the occasional green horse mistake.

A bit of fifth leg development as she hit the ground pole in a wonky stride and had to figure her feet out quickly before the crossrail

By the end of the third session, which will be the last time we free jump her while I have her, Mary was thrilled. She said she'll never make a hunter - she has too much fun with it and is too reactive - but that she would make an outstanding pony jumper, quick and catty and able to turn on a dime. Sadly, there's not much of a pony jumper market in the US, so that's not likely to be her calling, but it's still so cool to see what's in there.

It also did absolutely nothing to quell Mary's desperate desire to see this mare bred to a small Warmblood stallion.

I had two major takeaways from this. The first is that I learned that it does take even the naturally talented ones time to learn how to jump and to decide whether or not they enjoy it. And the second is that Eva is starting to develop a work ethic, much to my unending relief, because up until the last couple of weeks her approach to work has been that of an unemployed 25 year old man living in his mom's basement and bristling every time she asks if he's applied for any jobs today. 

 The fact that a horse can be innately talented for work and for jumping but still take time to develop and show that is something I'm going to carry with me as I work with other horses.

I had been stalking Facebook Marketplace for about a year, and knew a good deal when I saw one...

(It's amazing how many of my stories start out like this)

And that's how I ended up driving 700 miles round trip to pick up...

(Also this)

Yes, it's true. I, terrified of driving, just bought a cart. I am still as surprised as you all are. But after 18 months of talking to Maude about driving, realizing how much Disco enjoys it, seeing how reliable he is, and acknowledging how ridiculous it is to own two ponies broke to drive and not be able to drive them, I gave in.

In the seller's garage. I need to get some glamour shots of it soon.

Driving is OVERWHELMING, y'all. There is so much to learn and so many ways to do it wrong or to buy the wrong things. Maude graciously looked over each used listing I sent her and gave her opinion - not the right size for Disco, you can't show with bicycle wheels, etc etc. But this one checked out.

And and!! I managed to go pick it up on blogger Teresa's birthday, which is the day before my birthday, so we had a birthday brunch on my way up, which was awesome!

I don't know much about the cart. I think this style is called a gig cart. The paint needs some attention, but the crushed velvet seat is in amazing shape. My biggest concern was getting it home - I waffled for a long time on bringing a trailer or just my truck, because the dimensions were super tight. And they were - it barely fit. But it did fit.

This does mean I can transport both cart and pony to a show, as long as the weather is good.

I was very grateful to whoever ordered this truck new for spec'ing like a million tie down points in the bed. It didn't move a millimeter the entire way home. And it also didn't scratch the cab, thanks to some electrical pipe insulation and a blanket.

Next up, I need a harness, and conveniently, The National Drive is being held 30 minutes from me this week, and they have a tack swap...

My who knows how old cart next to my 1917 (yes, really) manure spreader

Our co-op model's success is due, in part, to a model that requires the bare minimum of us on a day-to-day. The horses will be fed, watered, looked over, and where they are supposed to be, and that's about it. 

But that means there are a lot of "I'll get to that someday" things that pile up, and while I handle many of them myself, I can't handle them all. In fact, I don't think I could have signed on to buy this barn before I learned that lesson - that asking for help isn't a sign of weakness or a risk that cannot be incurred lest I take up too much space in someone's life, but it takes a lot of strength, especially for a card carrying independent woman like me.

Watering and dragging is about as much irregular farm maintenance as I can fit into my life on a weekly basis right now.

So a couple of months ago, I asked the boarders if they would be willing to give up a Saturday before winter for a pre-winter fall cleanup day. They all enthusiastically said yes. So that's how all four boarders, two significant others and the current BO spent a rainy (bless) Saturday last weekend doing well, all the things.

Fudge demonstrating one of many improvements installed on barn cleanup day: a coyote poop washing station in the wash rack

We cleaned gutters and cleared downspouts. We replaced the tines on the Parmagroomer, which had worn down by about 2" over the years. We raked the footing away from the indoor walls. We chainsawed bushes that were growing into the fence. We greased the slam latches on all of the gates and adjusted the hinges so that they close easily again.

He's such a keeper 💗

We replaced worn-out crossties and vacuumed the fans and auto-waterers. We did a lot to the water wagon - pressure washing the algae off the inside of the tank, drilling some additional holes and airing up the tires. We moved jumps from the outdoor to the indoor. We fixed a drippy spigot. We deep cleaned every surface of the barn, threw out anything expired and made a giant "Whose is this?" pile, which everyone went through, picked out their stuff and wrote their initials on it with a sharpie.

We also made a giant donate pile, both from us boarders and from the barn owner who is slowly getting rid of things neither he nor I want to keep from the equipment barn. The donate pile is going to a therapeutic riding barn, and included a barely used double-wheel wheelbarrow and an entire bag of pasture seed mix among many other things, so I can't imagine they'll turn it down.

But it wasn't just maintenance. We also made some improvements that will make our lives easier, like hanging a pull-out drying rack in the bathroom so that we actually start using the barn's washer, putting a 2x4 above one section of the arena kick wall so that we can store bag chairs there, and something I've wanted to do for a long time: replace the barely usable and always dirty fixed wire corner shelves in the wash rack with something much more functional:

Every horse gets one basket, and then there are two baskets for the barn (brushes for scrubbing waterers, etc). Most importantly, they all hang on hooks and can be taken off the wall for regular cleaning, unlike the old shelves.

It was incredibly cathartic to see the list disappear quickly under so many hands. I made a nice lunch for everyone, a Middle Eastern chicken soup and sandwiches, but it was the least I could do for as much work as everyone did. And at the end of it all, every single boarder said, unprompted, that we should do this twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.

Meatloaf giving me the side eye because she was massively over my shit in the eighth hour of following me around the barn that day.

In all of the biggest and all of the smallest ways, I could not run this farm without these wonderful people in my life, and I will never stop being grateful.

I have a reminder on my calendar to wash and wax my trailer once a year in September. September is always a beautiful month here, very little rain and decent temps (though this year - ugh - we haven't had a good rain since June and my pastures are literally dying, so I would take some less beautiful weather, please and thank you).

Hank showing off my hay field, which is naturally in better shape than the pastures since it's not fenced and doesn't get grazed.

Buuuuut in 2022 and 2023 I just...didn't. Depression, not showing much, blah blah blah. So anyway, there was 3 years' worth of...stuff...to chisel off this trailer.

I'm happy to report that Wash Wax All still did the trick even with it being extra dirty. I washed and waxed the whole thing with 2 gallons of water and six towels. I do also have wash mitts on extension poles, but I mostly only used those on the roof. I didn't find that it saved me much time, and I do like getting up close and personal with the trailer skin once a year, so that I can closely inspect any new rock chips, etc.

In some places, I started with the slightly stronger Wash All from the same company, which contains stronger degreasers and doesn't contain wax. Mostly, this was just because I was lazy and didn't want to have to scrub that hard. Then I followed it with Wash Wax All to give it that protective wax coating.

A fairly obvious before/after of the skin on the nose

Really, it felt good to take care of it. I still adore this trailer. I've had it 7 years next month, and it's been nothing but good to me. I also took the opportunity to spray UV protectant on the rubber seals, and silicone lube on the window tracks.

Before

After

It's also just one of those chores that makes my brain itch, seeing that dirty trailer sitting there every time I walk to the manure pile, feeling that little twinge "You should be doing this and you're not." A lot of things around the farm are like that for me, which is why I'm grateful that my boarders have agreed to a fall clean-up day later this month, when we're going to knock out the "need to get to that" chores all at once.