I have owned my horse, Lucky, for nine years now, and for all nine of those years, he has been at one of a series of full care boarding barns. First in Iowa, where I grew up and went to high school, then to Florida to be leased out for a year, then back up north to Missouri to stay with me at college. 

My mother chastises me that Lucky “isn’t a suitcase,” and I should just leave him at home while I’m at a time in my life that requires frequent moving for school, internships and jobs. I tried that—for seven months while I worked for Phelps Media Group, The Book LLC and the Chronicle, I left him in Missouri—and it was miserable.

“It was not miserable; it was awesome.” (By the way, this blog is co-authored by Lucky himself.)

Shut up, Lucky, it was awful and you know it.

“Oh yeah, spending seven months doing nothing but eating and running around a field with very occasional training rides was simply TORTUROUS.”

But I missed you so much!

“………”

Lucky?

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

Well anyway, I wasn’t going to let traveling get in the way of spending the summer with my beloved horse again.

“Gross, mom. Get a life.”

So I brought him with me to Virginia for the summer, where I will be living for two and a half months while I intern for The Chronicle of the Horse again. My parents are very generously supporting Lucky through college, but I made a deal with my mom that I would find somewhere super cheap to board Lucky in Virginia, and I would pay for shipping myself, so that when all was said and done, she wouldn’t spend any more money than if Lucky stayed in Missouri.

Here’s the thing—it’s entirely unrealistic to expect someone to board your horse, full care, on the cheap. I started looking online at different full care facilities, and it wasn’t that they were unreasonably priced (hay, grain, shavings, property and staff do not come free), they were just way too expensive for me to sell to my parents. How could I justify making them spend way more money than they would if I just left Lucky in Missouri?

A whole field of fresh, pick your own, ready-to-eat grass, and he goes for the canned goods. #showhunterproblems

As I scrolled through a Virginia website listing different barns and boarding options, I came across a listing for a “self-care stall with turnout” in Aldie, Va., for just $175 a month. 175 DOLLARS A MONTH? THAT’S IT? I don’t care if it’s barren wasteland with a lean-to shack…

“Uh, I DO!”

…you can’t beat that price!

Pictures of the property revealed it to be far from a desert wasteland—it’s a very charming small family farm with big green fields and black board fencing, and a small five-stall barn painted white with black shutters.

It was perfect, minus that small detail captured in two words in the online ad—“self care.” Self care? Remember, you’re talking to an adult amateur hunter who texts her trainer asking whether or not her horse needs sunscreen on his nose today. Self care would mean I alone would be entirely responsible for the Duck.

“Say it ain’t so.”

Not just feeding, watering and cleaning his stall, I would have to be on top of scheduling farrier visits and veterinary appointments, schedule lessons with a trainer who was willing to drive to the farm, decide BY MYSELF if it was too hot to go outside, or too muddy, or too buggy, or, or, or SO MANY THINGS.

Well, it’s been a little less than a month since I moved the Duck to Virginia and started making ALL the decisions and taking complete care of the Duck myself, and as can be expected, I haven’t been perfect.

“Oh don’t flatter yourself, you’ve been FAR from perfect.”

Lucky’s summer cottage stall—this is the best angle from which to view his stall, because you can’t see his water bucket (that he poops in), his other water bucket (which he fills with hay), or his shavings (which he fills with all of the things, and then spins around in).

Ducky, for his part, would like the opportunity to lodge some complaints about my care, compared to his former cushy full care boarding life, on a public forum. Here are his top 10: 

Lucky’s Self Care Woes

1. OK, for starters, stop leaving me inside all night when your iPhone calls for a 10 percent chance of rain. I am not a China doll nor the Wicked Witch of the West—the rain will not maim me.

2. Stop leaving me outside when your iPhone calls for 100 percent chance of rain because you don’t want to clean my stall in the morning. First off, it’s my room, and I’ll destroy it if I want to, and second, I will throw every damn one of my shoes if you pull that again.

3. Just because you don’t have a trainer babysitting you every day doesn’t mean you don’t have to clean my tack every day. That stuff smells rank, and I KNOW it’s not from me. That’s on you and your undisciplined cleaning skills.

4. Stop riding me after work at 6 in the evening in the boiling hot sun because you’re too lazy to get up and ride in the morning. I am a delicate Thoroughbred flower, and I WILL wilt in that heat.

5. And so help me God, if you smack me one more time with that crop because I’m going “too slow” and am “completely unresponsive to any and all leg cues” in the million-degree heat, I will cut you. I will spend all night crafting a shiv from one of my shoe’s nails, and I will CUT you.

6. Stop putting my hay in the damn hay bag. Remember how you insisted at all the farms you boarded at that I needed to be fed on the ground because “it’s more natural,” and “I might get hay in my eyes”? Yeah, I don’t care about that; I just want to dunk my hay in my water, then drop it in my bedding, poop on top of it, and mix it all together. Stop harshing my mellow.

7. I’ve noticed you haven’t been bedding me as deep as other barns I’ve lived at, and I’m going to need you to cut that out pronto. Yes, I am a disgusting little bastard who regularly poops in one water bucket, dunks hay in the other, pees all over the place, and then spins circles like a reiner. These are all your problems, so stop depriving me of knee-deep pine shavings.  

8. Correction, I just saw the price tag on a bag of shavings. Carry on with bedding as planned; you need to be able to afford my carrots. 

9. A little bird told me you, “just for funsies,” have entered us in a jumper class (the locally famous Twilight Jumper Series), WHICH IS A REALLY FUNNY JOKE, because that would imply you expect me to go faster than a show hunter four-beated canter and turn without going alllllll the way out in my corners, which your freaking heels have nagged me about for NINE YEARS. I hate you.

Practicing for Twilight Jumpers—because there is nothing show hunters love more than going fast, turning tight and jumping square oxers!  
“I’m resigning my post as your horse, effective immediately.”

10. Oh damn, you’re in charge of feeding me now. I DON’T HATE YOU, I love you! Please come back.

I’m sure there will be more complaints after Ducky and I debut as “jumpers” at the Twilight Jumper Series, so check back for that blog!

Ann Glavan is an editorial intern for The Chronicle of the Horse. Originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Ann grew up competing at A circuit shows in the hunter and equitation divisions, first on her pony Is A Belle and more recently on her horse Happy Go Lucky. Ann interned for Phelps Media Group during the 2014 FTI Winter Equestrian Festival and photographed for The Book LLC before joining the Chronicle team for the summer of 2014. She is finishing up her undergraduate degree in economics and journalism at the University of Missouri this fall, and is back with the Chronicle for the summer of 2015.