…sometimes the decisions I’m faced with really tear me apart.
In mid January of 2008, I bought the horse I had waited and looked for for over six years, Personal Remark, aka Remy. She was an impulse buy…saw her on Horsetopia; she was $400 and only 20 miles away, so why not go see? Her ad stated that while she was 18 years old and 16hh, she seemed otherwise perfect for me. She had show experience and had done everything under the sun, from barrel racing to trail riding, from western pleasure to doing 3’ Jumpers.
So, bundled up in eight zillion layers, we went to meet this Remy. Despite her monstrous size (over a foot taller than me at the withers!) she was such a sweetheart. After jumping on her with a huge western saddle and walking her around the driveway (along with a few trotting strides), we said nothing more than “We’ll take her.”
Anyone that knows anything about the horse market could see the flashing neon lights and alarm bells and sirens and loud shit with the situation. But amazingly, I lucked out with the best first horse a girl could get. On a day to day basis she’d cart me around the arena, whether it was half-galloping with me way up on her neck, or taking me over 2 foot verticals CANTERING when I’d have near panic attacks trotting over tiny crossrails on any other horse. She even took me to my first show…and while we really butchered it (accidentally cantering in the W/T Pleasure class and screwing up the Eq pattern), she never placed a foot wrong or intimidated me at all.
It was later that year, with the changing seasons and falling leaves, that we started realizing something wasn’t quite right with Remy. It started off only while we were jumping; she’d toss her head and canter away. Remy would never bolt off with you, that was a fact.
We brushed it off as nothing, and put her on some joint supplements. After all, she was 18 years old; it’s a practical given that any near-elderly ex-racehorse is going to have some uncomfortable times.
A month later, Remy could no longer trot. She’d shake her head like a maniac and dive right into an uncontrollable canter until you pulled her up, at which point she’d go back to walking. I was still so blind to this; Remy was my best friend…maybe it’s just the cold weather, maybe she just doesn’t like this bit, maybe she just needs her teeth floated, etc. I started making up excuses until one day my dad made me stop riding her. Made me stop riding her, the horse that had leaped backwards when I got catapulted off her shoulders just so she wouldn’t step on me when I fell, who took me to my first show, who made me cry and grin like a retard and everything in between. He didn’t trust her anymore, he said she was dangerous.
The horse that would stand there with six children climbing all over her, brushing her and yanking innocently on her tail, was dangerous.
I was heartbroken, even more so when my instructor told me it was time for Remy to go. She claimed I had gone as far as I could with her and there was nothing else we could do.
A few months later, Remy was shipped back to her old owners who now owned a private farm for $400.
Every time I came in for a lesson and that stall was empty, my heart broke even more. Since she had been diagnosed with her grim outcome, I had been half-heartedly searching for a little pony hunter.
My instructor had been setting me up with different horses to ride, because she had felt so bad watching Remy get sent away.
I started riding Maddie, a 15.3hh OTTB with a flashly look and incredible hunter movement. She was comparable to the $20k Hunters Under Saddle with a little show experience and some slowing to her canter.
One day, I was given a price on her. $1,500, take it or leave it. I had a week to decide, or she was going up for public sale.
I looked at the prospect of a cute little pony hunter, and I looked at that empty stall. The empty stall overwhelmed the cute little pony hunter, and I gave in. I bought Maddie.
Everything was going fantastic. Maddie was a gorgeous mare, I couldn’t ride without getting compliments, and so we went to our first show not two months after buying her.
The show was a train wreck. It was Maddie’s first time going anywhere that wasn’t a race…that should say enough. We didn’t place in anything, and Maddie was beyond confused.
A week later, she came up with an abscess, which was understandable considering the sudden changes in ground moisture. But even weeks after it burst and healed, Maddie was still acting up. She went from calm, level-headed hunter to the stereotypical OTTB, complete with bolting and bucking.
Naturally, I was scared to death. Lessons would end on me jumping off her and running out of the arena with tears streaming down my face, where I would hide in the Porta-Potty and wonder what went wrong.
I stopped riding her. Now a horse I was deathly afraid of, a horse everyone said I ruined, sat in that stall, unused.
That broke my heart more than it being empty.
I had other girls start riding her to ease my pain, and they really did some good with her. I eventually started riding her about a month ago, and while I’m still far from trusting her, I do enough to at least go W/T with the occasional canter. Still, I know I don’t have what it takes to train her anymore, so she’s currently up for sale for $1,750 OBO.
So, here’s the problem.
I’ve been bugging my parents to let me go visit Remy since early August. Today, it happened.
It was supposed to be all happy tears and reunited and it feeeeels so goood! but it wasn’t. It was all bittersweet emotions and memories, and it was far from good. It made me realize that fuck, I might have really screwed up.
Because Remy’s content where she is, but she’s not happy.
The moment I went out in the pasture to see her, she came walking up to me as fast as she could with ears pricked…had she been able to gallop up to me, I’m sure she would have.
I spent a very long time just standing there with her in the cold autumn wind, just watching her hair fly around as she munched on clover.
She wouldn’t go back in the barn because she thought she was mine again and she wanted to jump in the trailer and come home.
Eventually, I wanted to get on her. They claimed they had been doing W/T/C work with her and started her over small jumps. I assumed she was fully healed after her diet changes and massages and stuff.
They claimed. I assumed.
I was horrified when I finally got on her. She took right off at a trot much like Maddie at her first show. A very Dressage-y trot as I had known they were going to further train her in last summer if I hadn’t bought her.
That Dressage-y trot turned into vicious head shaking, which turned into a choppy canter back to the gate, where she stopped and pulled mercilessly on the bit.
Remy hasn’t changed. My heart sunk.
We untacked her and they started talking about getting rid of all of their horses by next weekend, about sending them to the auctions but Remy would be the last to have to go.
My grip on her mane tightened possessively, because suddenly her future’s uncertain. My best friend; the horse that meant everything to me. The horse I waited almost 3 months just to come visit. The only horse I’ve ever truly loved.
Maddie is going to be a superstar world champion hunter someday, with the right rider. She’s fun to ride when she’s not scary as fuck and has one hell of a jump.
But we’ve never really had a bond, it was all visions of ribbons and greed and desire to fill that stall overtook me when I agreed to buy her.
Then there’s Remy.
But her future, even with me, is uncertain, because how long can you keep a 19 year old Thoroughbred ex-racehorse sound when they’re hardly rideable already? And when she’s not sound again, will it be deja vu and shipping her off? Because as much as I said I’d keep her just as a pasture puff, I can’t see my parents coming up with $300 a month to keep her like that.
I care about her so damn much, the thought of her potentially being in the hands of a kill buyer or someone who will never see the good in her, just a half-lame, “dangerous”, giant elderly ex-racehorse, and not knowing all these heart-squeezing memories that I know, just ties my stomach in knots.
I love her. But how much can I really do for her?
Is it worth giving up having a rideable horse of my own for the one I love?
Or is this just a sign that it’s really just time to move on?
I need help.
