Cob Jockey

It's interesting - looking back on it, I was never in love with baby Disco. 

Possibly one of the best photos I've ever taken, lol. May 2021.

I mean, I liked him a lot. But whether it was being totally unsure of what I was doing raising a baby, or having no ability to read what kind of horse he would grow up into, I never felt the warm fuzzies I feel when I look at Connor.

The best old man charming his new bodyworker to pieces yesterday. I think she would have taken him home for her grandkids if I was interested in selling him.

I fully recognize that I'm still in the honeymoon period with Disco. I haven't asked him to do anything hard, haven't gone through anything more difficult than getting him out to his turnout field when he hadn't been turned out in preceding 8 days (which, on a scale of Connor to the racehorses I used to handle, was like a 4). 

But I'm feeling the warm fuzzies toward him already anyway. He's gorgeous, for one. He makes my heart flutter in the same way Eva did: just standing there, he makes me catch my breath. All of the conformation question marks I had about him as a baby have softened or disappeared (save for his slightly upright front pasterns, which, no one's perfect.)

Hard to believe we're going to look back on this picture in a few years and realize what a baby he still looks like here.

But it's his attitude that has impressed me the most. There's a softness to his eye that wasn't there as a baby, and a level of good citizen-ry installed that speaks to the work Maude did with him. He's aware of everything around him - anything unusual requires a head raise and a long look - but he's not stupid. 

I get a shiver sometimes when I see a photo of him like this. He looks like his grandpa and Lisa's heart horse, *Tuscani Dundee, reincarnated.

And he takes so much joy in movement. It's not hard to see why Maude said he has the best work ethic of any horse she's ever worked. Even when it's not silly movement, you can tell that he's going to be more 'go' than 'whoa', which (please remind me when I'm feeling overhorsed in a year or two) I wanted in my second horse. I'm ready for it in a way I wasn't when I got Connor.

First turnout in 8 days. He really held his shit together and saved all of his horse balloon antics for after the lead rope had been unclipped, bless him.

Through these warm fuzzies, I'm maintaining the balanced perspective I know I'll need over the next 3-5 years. I know that with any young horse, let alone a stallion, there are going to be days when I want to sell him, and days when I question my sanity, and days when I want to take his nuts off myself. 

But it's exciting to feel like he might be growing into everything I hoped he would be as a baby, and to know that whatever temporary struggles we go through, the horse I'll have on the other side will be worth it.