There’s so much to be thankful for in this line of work. First, I’m overwhelmingly thankful that this IS my line of work, that somehow I got good enough at this to make it a paying job. And I’m thankful for all the people and horses that made it possible for me to get good enough—my family, of course, for their endless support; for all the trainers who tolerated my whiny teenage butt, whipped it into shape and spat me out what I am today. And I’m endlessly thankful for all my students who allow me to pursue my own riding and training goals along side helping them achieve theirs.
But today, I want to tell you all about one thing I’m thankful for in particular: a little orange horse no one believed in.
I tell people all the time that Midgey’s life story could be made into a made-for-TV movie with B-list actors and sappy music. I’ve told his tale before, but to sum up: He was bred in Wisconsin by folks who bred Arabians for the English pleasure and saddleseat worlds. He was supposed to be kept intact and put to Arabian mares, passing on his chrome, his presence and his flashy movement. Only he didn’t move like what that world is looking for. So he was sent to a trainer I worked for to be started as a sport horse and most likely sold. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of college, and it was my job to get him going.
I hated his rising-3-year-old chestnut guts. He was spooky and upright and obnoxious. He was into EVERYTHING, pestered the other horses in the field, broke stuff in his stall all the time. And he was short, a terrifying mover with a bad walk and a canter that only happened at Mach-2 with his hair on fire.
So when my mom called me in January of my final year at school to tell me that his breeder had passed away, and that since horses were selling for a lark she’d bought him, I thought she was nuts. “A project,” she called him.
Some project.
My vet at the time told me he’d make a cute Pony Club horse. Pam Goodrich told me to get the heck rid of him. Lendon Gray called him an experiment. Scott Hassler, a great diplomat, didn’t really say anything one way or the other, but he spent an awful lot of time telling me how great Ella was.
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Then he learned his changes. His canter got markedly less terrifying; the walk got big and swingy. He was hard to beat at third level last year; he was impossible to beat this year in the Prix St. Georges. And the best is yet to come, because his piaffe and passage are incredible, and today, on Thanksgiving, he popped off six spectacular, straight, beautiful ones.
Then he ran away with me, because he’s still him. But I’ve now had two Olympians tell me that he might be nicer than Ella. And even if she outdoes him in every show they ever contest (and she might—she made SPECTACULAR half-steps yesterday, hind legs like a rockstar), even if he falls short of my team aspirations for him, he’s converted every naysayer to his team, including me. And he’s done it all while letting me hack him bareback in the snow, swim through the pond, and forcing him to wear funny hats.
Midgey is the pony I never had as a kid, and pretty soon he’s going to do his first Grand Prix test. Some project, huh?
So in the end, I am grateful for a goofy little Dutch horse who doesn’t hold it against me that I hated his guts for a while, and for my mom’s insane decision to buy a resale horse that would never in a million years work out. She’s never allowed to do that again, because we spent both our lifetimes’ worth of karma on that deal.
So to Midgey, and my mom, and to the countless others to whom I am in debt for this crazy, wonderful ride I’m on—Happy Thanksgiving. I eat pie in your honor.
