The long walk

It's been a long day.  

How did I even get to this point?  It's a question I've been asking myself since Friday when we were putting Darby down at the Equine Hospital. Just hours ago my biggest concern was rearranging my riding lessons so I could tend to Lucas' needs of getting his wisdom teeth out. You know-Wifely duties. And now I was here. Balling my eyes out ugly crying to a horse, who hated my very existence, who was upside down on a surgical table. I feel like I've been at this point before. Doing something menial and then BAM, I'm putting down a horse. Like, is this my routine now? Ugh, I'm saying like now. Anyway, the horse is always loved by everyone, uber talented, sourced and trained by me and then unexpectedly dies of something that they've 'never seen before.' I would give my left arm to never hear that stupid phrase ever again. EVER. You know how whenever something dies, you lose a little bit with them? I just feel like I'm slowly turning into stone like those people in the bible. Except for me, instead of turning back toward the burning town and paying the consequences of God's wrath, its me whenever I voice my dream aloud. That's right, we were talking about how I got here. Let's go back a few years...

It's 2017and I'd worked Dorothy Crowell for a while at this point and for the life of me, I could not keep Reddin sound. Here's this majestic unicorn of a red horse and he could be incredible if he would just take a damn day off from trying to murder himself. This stupid animal had let himself out twice and had ventured into the snake and gator infested pond. BOTH TIMES. When they say horse's brains are the size of a walnut, I get it.  Anywhooooo, I wasn't sure where I was headed. Do I continue this painful journey to the upper levels or do I train off the track thoroughbreds. Honestly they both scared me. I remember sitting in the grass in Florida asking John Crowell what I should do with my life. I think he laughed. John knew me well. I always wanted to take over my parent's farm and run amazing shows and train OTTBs and sell them to the most deserving people. I had painted such a luxurious picture in my head of how easily it was all going to happen. I literally LOL at that now. To speed things up, I did move home. With a broken chestnut and a naughty black mare named Darby. It was going to be a quick turn around sell to get my sales business going...

Darby hated me from the day I picked her up. She spent more time on her hind legs than anything else. Her special skills involved running from me, spooking at anything that I willed her not to spook at and pissing me off. I tried to give that bitch away and no one would take her. My mom said to get rid of her because she was dangerous. And she really was. The rule I learned at the racetrack was if you had to hit a filly, you better mean it and you better hang on. Boy, did I test that theory with her and I discovered what a true grudge held by a mare was.  Only after a particularly difficult day with her did I sit on my porch with a drink and realize Darby wasn't the problem, I was. Darby was just reflecting what I projected at her. I took a week off from riding her and really dug deep within myself and challenged me to be better. Be the rider she deserves. She reared less and less every day because I stopped egging her on. I started taking her to shows and believing in her and myself a little bit more. I stopped letting shows and pressure stress me out. After all, I was doing things different this time around. New me and all that jazz.

And Darby blossomed. 

She really shined at shows. I won Fox River Valley on my dressage score of a 22. I've never come close to that score since! Things were looking up. And then they weren't. 

This was 2018-My retired prelim horse took an unexpected downhill spiral. In short, he had an abscess that travelled wherever it pleased which happened to be upward and burst into his tendon sheath. I even put him into surgery to repair it only for him to let himself out of his small confinement a month later and he destroyed all our work. His choices cost him his life. It was so bad that his hock was straight and his fetlock was nearly touching the ground. It was one of those things that you look at and you gag. You know there's no fixing that. It was a beautiful July morning a few days after my birthday that I got to painstakingly walk my boy up his favorite hill one last time. We buried him where he had the best view of the farm. It gutted me. This horse gave me real confidence over huge fences and I had purchased him for $500 in college. And here I was, giving up on him. I felt so damn weak.  My vets have seen me so raw and ugly and they still believe in me. It shocks me to this day. 

Then there was some light at the end of my dark tunnel. My mom took over the reins on Darby and started an epic show career that took them all over the Midwest and Ocala. They jumped all the things and it's the happiest I've ever seen my mom. Kelly loved galloping around on Satan's Mistress and there wasn't a thing that stupid mare wouldn't jump for her. During this time I sold a few great horses and met some wonderful people. Reddin was finally on the up and up although he did jump 1 gate and get stuck in it but no one said change happens over night. But in 2 years, that wasn't bad. Stupid is as stupid does. --->I was gearing up to take Reddin to our first training level in a long time and he suddenly came in the barn hella lame. I vividly remember the day being June 8th. I don't know why. For 8 weeks, Dr. Sarah tried everything in the books to heal Reddin, short of witchcraft. We got creative. Nothing changed except his will to live plummeted. He stopped eating, stopped enjoying the outside and just life. I knew I couldn't ask him to fight anymore. I was being selfish. I knew this day was coming and I didn't want to face it. So for the 2nd time, I walked my boy up the hill. I apologized every painful step he made. This horse took me places and taught me things. One of which was anxiety attacks, but hey-that's horses right? And once again, I was giving up with no answers. I was the worst teammate ever. He went easily and he was laid on that hill with the best view,  next to Daint. Before we put him in the ground, I asked my vet to cut that piece of his leg off and find us answers. She was delighted in a happy, yet evil scientist/geeky vet kind of way. And did we get answers! "We have never seen this before" was the answer. He had developed some mystical infection that ate his tendons and ligaments OFF HIS BONES in his foot!! Then his body threw a big blood clot to the area and basically pretended that part of him no longer existed. So the scratches I thought I was treating? Yeah it was his dead flesh falling off. Vomit. There was no fixing that.

So here I was, for the first time in my life, horseless. How the hell did I even get here? This was NOT the plan. I was supposed to have competed at an intermediate 3* already. I'm 28! And yet. The next brilliant idea I had was when mom was not interested in taking Darby higher than prelim, I would take over the reins again and take her intermediate. She was a solid choice. Never went lame or jumped gates. Safe bet, right? This is a real Midwest 'Yeah, no' situation. One minute mom is jumping her and next she's bleeding out on a table with a hernia in her diaphragm that her guts are all dead from being in there for so long. Like huh? That's a thing that can happen? Just pull them out and stitch her up. Let's go. Not so much. Apparently it's not that easy. But this time was confusing and unfair-we didn't know it was coming, we didn't get our long walk up the hill, we aren't ready, she was JUST jumping, no...no ...NO God please no not again. No you can do this to me but, not my mom. And then she was gone. I felt sick. Im nauseas. It's a bad dream. I'm going to wake up. 

But its not. Her stall is empty as the rest of the farm munches on their hay tonight. I sat in her stall yesterday crying with my bundle of burning sage. Witchcraft I know. But I wanted her to know that I cared. That I missed her and I was sad for the opportunities that would never be...

I look at Maggie and I know she's such a cool horse. I'm just not sure it will ever be safe to keep her close to me. I'm a walking ticking time bomb,


but damn it if I'm not resilient. I will rise again. I'm just resting for now. Everyone knows diamonds are only made by being under a lot of pressure for a long time.

...I Might have to take a long walk up the hill with a moscow mule and have a drink with my boys tomorrow. After all, that's where the best view of the farm is.