I’ve owned my one-and-only, once-in-a-life-time horse, Happy Go Lucky, for almost 10 years now, but I remember the moment we bought him like it was yesterday.
My dad and I had driven to Mason City, Iowa, about two hours from our home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because my trainer, Leah Horrigan, wanted us to try a horse. I was 12 years old at the time, and we had been looking for a suitable partner for me for months. We needed a horse that could carry me in my first hunter classes out of the ponies, but also a horse who wouldn’t break the bank.
Enter Lucky, a 4-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred gelding. He’s a small fellow (15.3 hands, to be exact), and after watching him go with a student, Leah threw me aboard. I distinctly remember missing over and over again to the same fence in the warm up arena, and time after time, Lucky chipped his way over and landed cantering at the same, slow clip.
Leah had seen all she needed to—she recommended to my dad that we make an offer. I remember hopping off and standing with my dad and Leah as they discussed all the adult things that buying a horse entails—offers, trials, commissions, things 12-year-olds have absolutely no attention span for. I just wanted a horse to call my own. And a few minutes later, my wishes were answered as my dad told me we were buying Lucky.
For a moment, I couldn’t move, couldn’t believe it was really happening, and then I tackled him into an uncoordinated hug like the gangly pre-teen I was. I think it was the third time in my short little 12-year-old life I had cried from happiness (the first was when we got a puppy, the second when we started leasing a short-stirrup pony. Animals were a real big deal to childhood Ann).
Buying a 4-year-old, very newly off-the-track horse (he had six months of training from a hunter/jumper stable when we bought him) for your 12-year-old daughter could have gone so many ways, but I can honestly say owning Lucky has been the defining experience of my life.
He made me ride braver than I had any business doing as a young teen, because he could do no wrong. His honesty has no equal—he would leave a stride early or with his back feet on a flower box, made no difference to him, just to how we placed in our classes. “Do you think we’ll get a ribbon?” “Probably not, 14-year-old Ann, seeing as you left a stride out of the outside line and chipped every single other fence.”
We moved up the ranks together—starting in long stirrup and the baby greens. We progressed to the children’s, and somewhere in there, through a couple of trainer swaps at the barn I was riding at, my current wonderful trainer Katie Wills came into my life.
Katie and I sat down and I told her my goal was to do the junior hunters—not the 3’3”, the 3’6”. This coming from a girl who still struggled with the concept of finding a distance to a three-foot fence probably made Katie cringe at the idea of making poor Lucky pack my butt around the 3’6”, but she agreed if we worked really hard, we could make it happen.
And so we did—we focused on flatwork, on building Lucky’s topline and strength, and most of all on my eye, because “let’s leave from two strides out” was not going to fly in the juniors (I don’t think it flies anywhere, but at least at the lower heights its not so terrifying for spectators). We made our junior debut at the Ledges horse show in Chicago, and after a rocky first round (we stopped at the literal first fence, because, surprise surprise, I tried to defy the rules of physics and leave from under the fence), we put in some respectable trips—I think we got second in the handy round, and won the hack.
Lucky jumping his heart out for me. Photo by Shawn McMillen Photography
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Goal accomplished! Now what? That’s where Lucky and I’s partnership began to run into a little snafu—he did not have the scope to jump any bigger. In all honesty, he didn’t really have the scope to do the 3’6”—Katie always said he did it with his heart, not his body, because you could tell he was pushing the limit of what he was physically able to do. My parents made it very clear that we were a one-horse family, so buying another scopier horse was out of the question.
And for years, it didn’t bother me in the slightest that I couldn’t jump any bigger—I went off to college, Lucky got leased out for a year to a woman who showed him in the adults, and then he came to live with me at the University of Missouri. I was rusty from not riding anything but school horses for a year, so we gradually worked out way back up to the three foot, and started going to some local shows in the adults.
I had passing thoughts of wanting to try the 3’6” amateur-owners, but felt bad pushing Lucky to do a division solely for my pride—he was so good and so competitive at the three foot, the only reason to move up would be for my ego. I competed in the adults and the USHJA National derby at the Lake St. Louis horse show in March of this year (we got sixth in the derby, which was very exciting for me, mostly because we got to do the victory gallop and our ribbon went from my waist to the floor—did I mention I’m actually 4 years old?), and then I headed to Virginia for the summer to work for the Chronicle, and Lucky came with me.
You may have seen my last blog about our self-care adventures this summer—what that blog didn’t mention is the inner conflict I have been wrestling with pretty much since that last horse show in March. I remember cantering around the adult division and thinking “I’ve been doing this height, with this horse, for the past seven years—am I going to do it for the next 10?”
I have always loved top horse sport—the local Midwest grand prix riders were my idols as a kid, and as I grew up and started following top horse sport (eventually interning for the Chronicle), I realized I really did want to start moving into the jumpers, and moving up the levels. I will never be the adult amateur who is content to bop around a low hunter course on the weekends.
The problem is the horse I currently own is very content doing just that, and is really quite good at it. We may have been a no-name pair from a flyover state, but we would come show at the Kentucky Horse Park during the summer and place in the top three in our 20+ horse children’s division—one of the most memorable moments of my junior career was walking into the ring in Kentucky for a presentation picture with our third place classic ribbon, looking back at the rest of the class trickling away from the in-gate, and thinking how hard my trainer and I had worked to make our little Thoroughbred shine amongst a sea of big warmbloods.
So very proud of that yellow ribbon! Photo by Shawn McMillen Photography
But when was it time for Lucky and I, my beloved partner of nearly a decade, the horse who taught me everything I know, to part ways? I remember looking down on riders who immediately sold their outgrown mounts and moved on to bigger and better things without so much as a backward glance—how could they so easily discard horses they learned to jump on, who carried them to their first wins?
I could never do that to Lucky—it wasn’t his fault he couldn’t jump any bigger, so I thought I should just stay at his level, despite where I wanted to go as a rider.
What I am starting to realize is how immature that way of thinking is. If every rider kept every horse they ever learned something from, McLain Ward would have a barn full of ponies. And neither the pony nor McLain would gain anything from that relationship—they’re better served teaching children, and McLain, well, he seems pretty good at that grand prix stuff.
That’s not to say riders don’t have a responsibility to past mounts—we have all heard horror stories of horses ending up in terrible situations after being sold from a good show home, and I for one would not be able to live with myself if I sold Lucky to buy my next horse and something happened to him. I’m a strong believer in building first right of refusal into any sales contract, if only so you are aware when an old horse changes hands. We can’t collect our old horses like Breyers, as my 16-year-old self would have you believe, but we can keep track of them and make sure they haven’t fallen into nefarious hands.
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And that brings me to Lucky—after a lot of thinking on the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that we would both be happier if he were leased out to a kid or adult moving into the three-foot divisions, and if I set about saving up for my next horse. I rode Lucky pretty much every day in Virginia, and I kept thinking how ridiculous it was that I was making my three-foot hunter counter-canter circles, leg yield across the ring, side pass in a perfectly horizontal line, or do turns on the haunches and forehand, all in a workmanlike frame.
He may be the only three-foot hunter you would mistake for an eq horse, because I insist on hacking him like he’s going to do the 1.30-meter later in the day.
My best buddy.
As he gets older (he’s now 13), its not fair to keep pushing him to be something he’s not—he is at his best when he’s confidently carrying an inexperienced rider around a small hunter course, forgiving every mistake, and throwing his heart over any fence you point him toward (there’s a certain once-12-year-old with no eye for a distance that can attest to that).
So off on our new journey we go—Lucky’s forever home is with me, he will never be for sale, only lease, but its time for him to spend a few years showing a new horse-crazy kid the ropes.
As for me, I’m going to start saving up for a jumper—it will have to be very young to fit my budget, and I’m sure there will be frustrating growing pains, occasions every young horse owner faces, where I want to pull out my hair and scream, to give up.
At times like those, I can only hope Lucky’s new home is reasonably nearby. I’ll hop in my car, drive a few hours, and find him at his new barn, his bright amber eyes catching me walking up the drive, and that dearly loved nicker, that sound that will never once get old, greeting and reassuring the girl who can truly say she owes everything—her riding career, her writing career, and the friends she has made through both—to the most special little bay Thoroughbred she’ll ever have the pleasure of knowing.
I love this face!
Ann Glavan has been 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.
