Welcome!
Well, it’s better late than never they say. I should have started this blog a year ago, when I bought the BEST partner a girl could ever ask for. And I have hmm’d and hawww’d over it several times. But now I am starting it, so lets start from the beginning.
Over a year ago, in July of 2018, I was scrolling through Facebook in the passenger seat of my friend’s car. I stopped suddenly and gasped. Up for sale was this beautiful MARE. No not Bacardi, obviously. Her name was Addie and she was an unraced tb and looked like my old lesson horse, which is what made me stop dead. I had divorced the year previously and was looking to find myself again. I had taken up riding back in February after taking 6 years off. I tentatively reached out, explaining my situation. We came to an accord and wrote up an agreement for a lease to own (or so I thought).
Addie and I spent all of August together. I moved her to a barn closer to me and my office where I was working and we began to bond. But, alas, it was not to last. At the end of August, the woman who I thought I was purchasing my horse from wanted her back. I was devastated, however I came to the realization that she was my test. I had wanted a horse my entire life and finally figured out, I COULD DO IT. So back on the search I went.
Now, really this time I got to pick. I could shop for whatever I wanted instead of seeing something spur of the moment. I wanted a gelding (preferably), over 16hh, and off the track, oh, and of course in my budget.
I looked at hundreds of horses online. I sent ad after ad to my trainer and she knocked most of them down. Too green, bad conformation for jumping etc. I was getting discouraged.
At the end of September, I was gearing up to leave for vacation and I saw an ad. A bit out of my price range, but maybe something could be negotiated. 16.1hh 8 yo bay OTTB gelding. I reached out and got a response back immediately from a woman named Kaleena. She sent me all the back story of the horse. Had come off the track in 2015, came to her in 2016 with the intent to train him as a hunter/jumper and sell him, since her passion were Peruvian Pasos. She sent me a TON of pictures of him and he was STUNNING. We made arrangements to meet when I came back into town. In the mean time I reasearched EVERYTHING about this horse. Where he was bred, where he ran, how many times, how many wins ETC ETC ETC.
Bred at Blue Ribbon Farm in Enumclaw, WA, he raced at Emerald Downs and Portland Meadows. Total, he ran 34 times and won TWO times. He was owned and trained by the same person his entire track career. He has one full sibling named Three Olives Later and his name is White River Pirate.
White River Pirate, or Bacardi, as he is known at home, is my horse. I went down and met him for the first time on October 4th 2018. It was truly love at first sight. He was muddy and we took about 2 hours just to find a saddle for me to ride him in. And it was NOT a successful first ride. AT ALL. But still. I wanted him.
I thought on it for a week and made my decision. He was going to me mine. I went and visited him once more time, had one only slightly more successful ride on him with my borrowed saddle, and Kaleena and I finalized our agreement, scheduled a hauler and a date for him to come home. That date was November 18th 2018. And come home he did…
…To a flu outbreak in our new barn. I was informed the week he came home that they had 2 cases of the flu. However, I was adamant about where I wanted him, and trusted in my new barn manager’s ability to handle the situaion. He was brought home and quantined outside [he was used to it since he lived in a pasture at Kaleena’s]. I was eccstatic.
I gave him about a week off and then we had our first ride at home, which was only moderately successful. Lots of head tossing, backing up and nerves on my part. Slowly but surely, day by day, ride by ride, we bonded. By December we were trotting, by January we were cantering. We worked on trot poles and cavalettis; but we still had a long way to go.
Unfortunately, the barn I chose did not allow jumping in the arena, due to the shallow depth of the footing and in Feburary we were hit by a massive amount of snow for our area. Bacardi lost weight, we lost our momentum. Come March, we started working with our friend and trainer Samantha, who affectionatly we know as Aunty Sam. Sam and I went way back, having ridden with the same trainer in our late teens/early 20’s. She was and is so supportive of our journey. Regretfully, not everyone in our sphere was as supportive.
The second barn manager at our facility seemed to have a lot of breed predjudice and not a strong understanding of what it was to care of an OTTB. There was a lot of criticism that, while not incorrect, was given in not a contructive or supporting way. This began to cause strife and anxiety for me at the barn. Comments were made about the state of his weight and if Bacardi were hers, she would be embarassed to take off his blanket etc. Another unforseen circumstance was losing my job at the beginning of April. Again, not expected and just another hardship, I got behind on board, which only STRAINED the relationship I had at the barn and made it more unbearable.
In June, Sam bought a new horse and was brining him home to a wonderful barn; and we decided to make a change. Due to circumstances of finances and drama, we were finally able to move at the end of July and finally started getting down to business.
In the last four months, we have started jumping and last week we jumped our first 2ft verticle and grid. We are still mostly working at the walk/trot and only cantering on the flat. We missed our (when when I say our, I mean MY) goal of the local Thoroughbred show, but we are making a lot of progress.
I will try to keep this blog updated with thoughts and musing of training this beast.
Happy Riding!
A+B
