A Shocking Experience

The wind was wild today. The horses in the turnouts were snorting and sprinting around the paddock with tails in the air. Ransom too was affected by the weather, but not in the typical way. Was he full of attitude? No. Was he nervous and spooky? No. Was he hyper? Maybe a little. But the real reason he was on edge was because his whole body was static from the wind. I could hardly touch the poor guy without shocking both of us. His tail hairs fanned out and hung suspended like a chandelier.

Grooming was an interesting task. I tried to make sure not to touch Ransom with both hands, but even so, I could feel the little electrical shocks with each stroke of the brush. An inadvertent shock to the nose sent him jumping backwards uncharacteristically.

Ransom knows to stay away from the electric tape fencing his pasture, but he shouldn’t have to face electrocution from me. No cuddling today.

Tick Tally

When I ran my hand across Ransom’s coat and felt lots of little scabs, I knew tick season had arrived. Living out in pasture, he is a magnet. I think ticks are disgusting, but have long since overcome my distaste at their removal. After pulling a few out by hand, I remembered the tweezers in my car. They were an invaluable tool as I sifted for the tiny buggers in his long coat.

His flank and throat were the sweet spots, but they were difficult places to search. Ransom stood tolerantly, one leg cocked and eyes half closed, allowing me to poke and probe in ticklish areas. Our grooming routine time nearly doubled, but each find was a triumph, and by the end of the week, I had killed sixty-one of the nasty parasites! Now that’s a genocide I can justify.

Anniversary

Today is the six month anniversary of the day Ransom became mine. My riding instructor used to say that it takes a year to develop a bond between one horse and rider – not just some warm fuzzy emotional attachment but a relationship of trust and training. I think Ransom and I are well on our way, aided by the fact that he was a clean slate when I bought him.

I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed. Back in June, my circumstances seemed the worst possible time for Ransom to come into my life. But now, I have been able to look back and see God’s provision and plan through everything. After moving to a new city and leaving my friends, Ransom has been a constant in these past months, while the rest of my life was in upheaval. He has been my one reason to get out of the house every day, a welcome distraction from the pressures and discouragement of job searching. He has provided day-to-day structure and purpose that my life lacked elsewhere.

On the upside, not having a job has allowed me the time to enjoy my horse and the beautiful fall weather. God knew that Ransom was exactly what I needed during a difficult time of transition and change, and His timing is always perfect.

Passengers

When I was a teenager, sharing lesson horses, I vowed that when I got my own horse, no one else would ride it for at least six months. I wanted to buy a horse all on my own, without my parents’ help, so that I wouldn’t have to share it with my sisters.

Well, ten years later I feel a little less selfish and have realized that it’s entirely different when you have the choice to share or not. So when my best friend came to visit, Ransom took his first passenger for a ride after only four months of ownership. After I helped her mount up, my normally responsive gelding stood like a rock while she tried to get him to go. I like to think that he didn’t want to leave me, but more likely than not, he was thinking, “There’s a hesitant stranger on my back. What do I do?” I had to lead him to start him walking, and he finally made a few uncertain laps around the arena.

Just a few weeks later, I had my five year-old cousin out for her first ride. Ransom practically slept as I led her around on a lead line, dragging his feet in the sand and standing with his eyes half closed. I heard later that my young convert spent the next few days riding her bike around with rope reins and calling it Ransom.

My sisters will be home from college for Christmas soon, and I can’t wait for them to meet Ransom. It’s been fun to share the horse I love with the people I love. And it doesn’t make him any less mine.

Winter Welcome

Trying to show the texture
Notice the spot haloes

I visited Ransom on Sunday, which is normally the day I don't go to the barn. However, I was gone Friday and Saturday and wanted to make up for lost time. Ransom had taken advantage of the two days off to thoroughly crust himself in mud.  The first storm of the season had just passed, leaving behind his fluffy, dirt-caked coat. I forget in the summertime how much longer it takes to groom in the winter - but I certainly don't mind spending time brushing him. Appaloosas have an interesting coat texture when their fur grows long. Ransom’s spots have a raised, embossed feel that differentiates them from the sleeker surrounding white hair, a quality unable to be appreciated until he’s clean.

 Sometimes I wonder if horses deliberately get dirty just so they can enjoy more frequent grooming by their personal masseuse. However, I'm a believer in letting a horse be a horse, so bring on the dirt!

The Backstory: Part 3

Ransom assimilated into the herd quickly, becoming best friends with Filly, the bay Morgan mare. She whinnied for him whenever I took him down to the arena. We spent our first week doing ground work in the round pen. He was four and had already been started, but had sat unused in a pasture for nine months, so some review was in order. He gave a bit of bronc action at first but he quickly settled down to business, and it wasn’t long before I threw my leg over for the first time.

Early on I ponied him on a staff trail ride to the Tin Cup campsite. Gypsy, a piebald mare I had started two years before, tolerated his antics. They were tied together at a tree while we sat around the campfire. I looked over just in time to see Ransom fall while standing tied to the tree. He leaned his entire body against Gypsy and when she staggered sideways, his feet somehow went out from under him. It was one of the most comical, klutzy things I’d ever seen.

Fortunately, he was more coordinated under saddle. His trot was a little bouncy, and he had trouble with his right lead, but I loved him. He progressed rapidly because of his calm demeanor. Nothing seemed to faze him. One day I pulled out a flag and a tarp to work on desensitization. He complacently pulled the tarp around like he’d been doing it his whole life. And the flag? Yawn. On our first trail ride, he stopped obediently and watched without anxiety as the other horse walked on ahead. Soon we were venturing out by ourselves, and he wasn’t spooky or barn sour.

View from new trails

Ransom was doing so well that by the time summer camp started, I trusted him to take out trail rides. I rode him one or two rides every day, lead or drag, when we took out the campers. Almost every ride, some kid claimed, "I want to ride the spotted horse." It gave me guilty pleasure to be able to say, "Sorry, you can’t ride him. He’s my horse." I’d been waiting my entire horse career to be able to say that. Growing up riding lesson horses, it was hard to share my favorites with lots of other people, to watch the beginner riders make mistakes on my beloved Manzanita or Sonny. Selfishly, I couldn’t wait to get my own horse because I wouldn’t have to share. He would be mine.

At summer’s end, it was time for the big move. I’d scouted out my new city, finding a boarding stable with reasonable rates, pasture board, and access to trails. Ransom was the last thing to move. Having borrowed a truck and trailer to use, I made my first solo trailer haul to bring Ransom to his new home. The first order of business was for him to meet the electric fence. Naturally, his reaction was sudden, but it only took once for him to understand how it worked. He settled into his new home and I settled into mine.

The Backstory: Part 2

Our first day

I had been browsing online horse classifieds for several weeks, just for fun. What I wanted would be sane, sound, and spotted – a young project gelding, reasonably priced, and within driving distance. But I wasn’t actually planning to buy a horse. The danger is that one eventually finds what one "isn’t" looking for. And find him I did. With the ad still on the computer screen in front of me, I pulled out my phone and called Momma.
"I just found my dream horse."

His name was Rip, and he was located just a few hours away. I bookmarked the ad, and agonized over it every day for a week, trying to convince myself to do something. I couldn’t let myself just sigh and think, someday. All the practical arguments that had convinced me to put in storage the dream of having my own horse rose up in full force again. Could I afford him? Where would I keep him? How would I transport him? Slowly I worked through the answers – a conversation with my parents, a projected expense sheet and evaluation of my finances, a phone call to a friend with a trailer. But what finally convinced me to pick up the phone was the realization that there was always going to be a good reason why now was not the best time to get a horse. First I was a teenager and my parents could hardly afford lessons, let alone a horse. Later there was the expense of college. And then I was working with horses all day at my job, with no time for one of my own. Now in just a few months I would be leaving my job and moving to a new city – not the best time to make such a commitment. The ideal circumstances were not going to come.

So I called. I made an appointment to visit that was a week out because of the limitations of my job schedule. I knew it was a risk to wait, but I figured that if this was God’s will, my horse would still be there. The day finally arrived, and I brought along my trusted horsey friend Jan for expert advice, moral support, and conversation on the three hour drive. With twelve years of horse experience and a degree underneath my belt, I still felt like a novice entering the horse ownership world.

He met us at the fence, stood amidst the cluttered gardening tools, and cocked a leg while the dogs ran underneath him. Sane, check. Although his legs were a bit toed out, his conformation was balanced and he moved gracefully on the lunge line. Sound, check. And he was the most beautiful Appaloosa I’d ever seen. Spotted, check. With Jan’s approval, I wrote the check.

I called my sister Emily on the way home. "I just bought a horse!" Her excited shriek was the response of someone who knew what this meant to me. The rest of the week didn’t seem real. I’d only dreamed of this my entire life. Was it really happening?

He was real enough as he stepped out of the trailer and explored the paddock of his new home. I sat on a blanket in the pasture that afternoon, watching my horse grazing. What to call him? I’d already decided I didn’t want to keep the name Rip. For a week I brainstormed with friends and family. During a long, late night drive home, I listened to my mom and sister Melody suggest names for nearly an hour. It turned into a game, and their outrageous suggestions were spawned mostly from their lack of sleep. When Daddy suggested the name Ransom, it stuck. Ransom was the name of the main character in C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy series, and I liked its Christian implications. It also kept the "r" sound of Rip without being too long.

The Backstory: Part 1



My first ride

The playground whizzed past me as Spangler, my appaloosa gelding, sprinted across the asphalt underneath me. As I passed the monkey bars, my friends Hannah and Camille tailed hot on my heels. We galloped around the drinking fountain and behind the softball cage – still I held the lead. I flew down the home stretch until the yard duty suddenly grabbed my shoulder. I pulled Spangler to a screeching halt. "Don’t run so fast," she said. I started to protest but the bell rang. With reluctance I left Spangler stabled next to the swings and filed back toward the classroom. Only an hour until lunch recess.

When I wasn’t riding Spangler I was doodling horses all over my homework or pasting horse pictures into my scrapbooks. I spent hours playing with my beloved Breyer and Grand Champion model horses. I did extra chores around the house to save up to buy the newest one. One time, my best friend’s mom gave us some wooden blocks for an art project. My friend made a cute little boat. Me? I made a feeder for my model horses. I shucked corn for dinner and saved the hair to use as hay. Yes, I was creatively desperate.

 

When I was eight, Grandma started sending me to horse camp. I lived for that one week every summer. "Wimpy" was my first tolerant teacher – a tired chestnut gelding who wouldn’t go unless I had a crop. The next year it was Miramar, a cribber with an enormous white belly. The summer I was eleven, my camp

instructor offered to let me stay around an extra week to help with the younger pony camp. She paid me $20 – I’d never made so much money in my life – and I learned the invaluable skill of how to scoop poop.

That $20 started my horse savings fund. Every cent I made from horse related activities in the next six years went into the pickle jar with "horse owner" written all over the lid. I used to dream of a lost horse wandering onto our property so I could take care of it until the owners came. I knew my parents couldn’t afford a horse, but every Christmas morning I nurtured the sliver of hope that they would say, "Surprise! Look outside." I researched the costs of fencing our small acre and took my plan to my parents. They enrolled me in riding lessons.

When Friday nights rolled around I laid awake, praying that it wouldn’t rain and prevent me from going to the barn the next day. Finances were tight, so every Saturday morning Momma dropped me off at 7:30 AM so I could work to help pay for my lessons. I did everything – cleaning stalls, scrubbing water troughs, scooping paddocks, cleaning the tack room, and raking the barn aisle. As I gained experience my responsibilities expanded to include moving hay with the tractor, feeding from the decrepit flatbed truck, and even taking out trail rides. In return, my riding instructor went out of her way to give this horse crazy girl extra opportunities. While my barn friends all rode their own horses, she let me use her horses to go to schooling shows, participate in an endurance ride, go on camping trips, and ride out to swim in the lake.

When I went off to college I competed on my school’s equestrian team. Amid my busy team schedule, I studied for my equine science degree. It took a little bit to convince Momma that there were career opportunities in the horse industry beyond scooping poop, but once I did, I relished the chance to study what I loved. Even though I was riding lots of horses and learning new things, it came at the cost of old dreams. In light of the realities, responsibilities, and expenses of adulthood, I laid aside the dream of having my own horse.

In the summertime I worked as a wrangler at camp. What could be better than a job working with kids and horses? My camp nickname was "Spangles," drawn from the story of my imaginary steed. Spangler still helped me to demonstrate maneuvers to my students in the arena. Camp turned into a full time job after graduation. I loved the twenty-five horse herd under my care. God fulfilled my dream of training horses, managing a stable, giving riding lessons, and working at camp full time in one fell swoop. But after three years of riding, training, and teaching, I felt tired and unmotivated. Some days I just didn’t feel like riding, and it made me feel guilty. But after thirteen years of pouring my time and energy into other people's horses, my moment finally came.