This is the brief story of how there came to be three horses at Hoo Hollow. In short, it just… sorta… happened.
Here’s how I remember it:
I had yet another frustrating ride on Siouxsie. All the vets told me she was fine and I should just keep working her. So I did. I even enlisted the help of a lovely, pro rider who got along very well with Sioux. But on this one day, I’d had about enough of the spookiness, hopped off my mare, and marched into the house, proclaiming to my husband that Siouxsie had to go. I was done. Like, stick a fork in me, done.
I told Buck that I was going to sell Siouxsie, find her a home that would be more suitable for a talented, athletic horse. “She needs to be in a program,” I said. “Just like everyone told me when I first brought her home.”
Buck agreed that I’d had enough frustration to last a lifetime, and that if I wanted to search for a new horse, he would support me in that effort.
So I went out to the barn and started to look at Siouxsie differently. I looked at her like a project horse getting ready to be sold. Our rides were transactional and unemotional. The work was balanced and brief. She was no longer “my horse”. Instead, she was getting prepped to be someone else’s horse, and my job was to tune her up so that her next home would be a good fit for her body and her brain. I was pretty sure that what Siouxsie needed was less of a program (she was getting worked very regularly at this point), and more of a herd. I think she was bored, isolated, and lonely. Brody makes a good companion because he’s such a chill guy, but he never wants to play with Sioux, he brings no drama to the day, and he eats all of her hay. No wonder she’s unhappy in the marriage!
Well, rather than wait to shop for a horse until I sold Siouxsie, I decided to do something I would never have done before. I decided to shop for a horse, and, if I found one before I sold Sioux, well then, I’d just have to cram three horses in my barn until I could find a good partner for Siouxsie. In my mind, that’s irresponsible of me. Keeping more horses on your property than the property is designed to keep, is something other people do. Irresponsible people. I have never been allowed to be irresponsible. Maybe I’ll tell that backstory some day. Anyway, too many horses on a small property is like sacrilege where I’m from. And yes, three horses on my 2.5 acres is too many horses. I mean, let’s not forget that big-ass ring I just put in.
Thankfully, when we converted the 2-car garage on our property to a barn, I made sure that the aisleway was large enough to be converted to a third stall in a pinch. I know full well how challenging it can be to have two horses in your backyard, and the separation anxiety that often comes with it. When we built the barn, I thought that having a potential third stall would be a good idea in case one of my horses needed a buddy for comfort. It turns out that the one who needed the comfort was me.
That comfort arrived this week, in the form of a 4.5 year-old OTTB mare named Owner’s Suite.
When I casually started to look around for a new horse, I began with people I know. A low-key Facebook post asking for recommendations for good OTTB rescue groups resulted in the usual players: New Vocations, CANTER, ReRun, After the Races, etc. But even adopting from one of those organizations meant I had to trust the assessment of a complete stranger, possibly one whose definition of “good on trails” is very different than mine.
After browsing the internet and shaking my head in disbelief at the price of trained pleasure horses these days, I quickly realized that I was going to either have to buy a much older horse or a much younger one. Hmmmmm.
A FB friend suggested I reach out to Jamie Jennings at Flyover Farm. Jamie, as many of you will know, is the host of Horses in the Morning on the Horse Radio Network. Jamie also happens to be a certified Monty Roberts trainer, and works regularly with a rescue group in Oklahoma named Horse and Hound.
Other than listening to the occasional HITM episode while mucking stalls, I don’t really follow my HRN colleagues social media accounts. I’m not sure why I don’t, but honestly, I think that’s true for most of us. We’re just wicked busy trying to keep our own accounts active; following other accounts is a luxury in time most of us can’t afford.
So, when someone said to contact Jamie, that’s what I did. I sent her a quick, private message on Facebook that read like this:
“I’m on the search for a new horse. If anything quiet comes your way that has potential to hunt, hack out quietly, or get me to B/N, let me know. I like the small ones. Just can’t be inherently anxious. Maybe a gelding this time.“
Jamie’s reply: “Take a look at the bay mare I have now. She is super nice and quiet. I think she is pretty special. Owner’s Suite.”
And that’s it.
I went up to Jamie’s FB page, looked at the very short video clip she made on the mare’s first day at Flyover Farm, and thought, “Well yeah, she’s cute. I’ll look a little further.”
The problem is that there were a dozen people already looking a “little further” at this mare, too. Jamie warned me that I should fill out an application asap if I was serious about getting a new horse. Was I serious? Sheesh? This all happened so fast. I wasn’t prepared to make a decision so quickly!
The funny thing is, I spend so much damn time preparing to make a decision, that I often don’t make any decision at all. Paralysis by Analysis, it’s called, and I’m always suffering from it. In an effort to change my luck by changing my strategy, I decided to make a shift away from my usual M.O. and just send in the application. If I get approved and the mare passes a vet check, then I’ll bring her home to Hoo Hollow and just get on with life. Maybe I just need to try a different Thoroughbred in order to tell whether or not I actually have what it takes to bring a little pleasure horse along. Why not, right? Worst case scenario, I send her back to the rescue she came from. That would, no doubt, be a costly mistake, but at least I could rest easy knowing that she could go back to some good folks whose job it is to find the right home for this mare.
Ultimately, that safety net was the deciding factor. In less than three days, I signed an adoption agreement with Horse and Hound. And a few days after that, I secured a shipper to bring Owner’s Suite half way across the country from Norman, Oklahoma to Little Compton, Rhode Island.
In the meantime, Jamie and I agreed that while we waited for the shipper to pick up my new mare, the horse would stay in training with her at Flyover Farm. Perfect, I thought. I trust Jamie implicitly in helping Owner’s Suite get off to a good start with compassion and expert training. At this point, I couldn’t believe my good luck that all of these things were lining up so well. And so here we are, with three horses in the barnyard and no plan. It’s actually quite refreshing!
What will become of Sioux going forward? Nothing horrible, that’s for sure. Buck has taken over her groundwork training. He was so inspired by the R+ (clicker) training I was doing with her, that he decided to try his hand at it also. And guess what? He fell in love with the power, precision, and kindness of it. In fact, every day since the day I told him I’d like to find another horse for myself, he’s been doing some sort of clicker training with Siouxsie. Even though he’s a novice with the clicker, he and Sioux have bonded in a way that wasn’t possible when she was “my horse.” Buck now loves her as much as I do, and he doesn’t have the same kind of emotional investment in her abilities as a riding horse as I did, so the pressure on their relationship is nil. He can work with Siouxsie regardless of her potential as a competitive athlete, and that may be perfect for both of them.
So, Siouxsie will either remain with us at Hoo Hollow permanently, and I will continue to work with her, or the absolute perfect rider will appear out of the mist and whisk her off to her best life. Which, by the way, will be exactly no more than 2 miles down the road from me on any given day.