list of horses from a long time ago

[quietann]

My instructor from 1976 to 1981 was Helen Button; I'll have more to say about her in a separate post.

• Lollipop: a strawberry roan older pony mare, ~13.2 hands, with lots of splashy white. Conformation wise her body was a bit too long for her legs. She was Helen's beginner pony, because she was absolutely bomb-proof. *Nothing* scared her. If a kid fell off of her, she'd stop and poke her nose down at them. She taught us all how to pick hooves properly by stepping on our toes (gently) if we did it wrong. Not a super-"go-ey" pony, but with a good rider who knew how to motivate her, she was a great little hunter. I jumped my first 3 foot jump on her back. As a personality, she was my favorite.
  
  
• Precious: dapple grey half-Arabian pony mare, ~13 hands or so. I only rode her in the rink because she was wild and crazy on the trail. (One time a student arrived late and got on her to catch up with the rest of us on a trail ride, and Precious *broke her bridle* and galloped about a mile with the girl clinging to her mane to get to us.) Even in the rink she was tricky because she was so hyper. I learned how to get a runaway horse to slow down using decreasing circles on her. More than once! She was a fabulous jumper (including once when for no particularly good reason, she flew over the rink fence, which was close to 4 feet tall with a good drop off the other side, luckily with a skilled rider on board.) But very very hot. She also had a lot of dressage training and we used simple dressage exercises to calm her down. She was barefoot all the time and *never* lame.
  
  
• Jingles: an attractive red dun pony gelding of unknown lineage, about 13.2 hands. He had all the bad pony vices, especially when my instructor paid $500 for him as a spoiled rotten 3 1/2 year old. Some stupid person thought that their little girl and her pony should "grow up together" and the result was a brat. A smart, talented brat who was so plump that he needed a crupper and a breastplate to hold his saddle on. This is the pony that rubbed me off against a jump, causing me to rip the back of my leg open. The one who'd let you get all relaxed and then do something silly like stop short, or refuse to slow down or speed up, or take a jump, or cross a stream, or... Sounds horrid, doesn't he? Well, after five years of being trained and being a lesson horse, my instructor sold him as a show pony prospect for $6000! A lot of money for a pony in 1980... When in condition, he was beautiful, and he eventually was an enthusiastic jumper. And dropped most but not all of his bad habits.
  
  
• Valentine: my instructor's personal horse, a chestnut Morgan/QH cross with a humungous butt and a heart-shaped white marking on her forehead. She was an utter sweetheart, exceptionally well-trained and very easy to ride. I was among the honored few who was allowed to ride her in a bitted bridle rather than an English hackamore; she had a very soft mouth and Helen wanted to keep it that way. Another horse with a lot of dressage training. Her Achilles heel was arthritis; she was an old lady, 20+, and would get sore if jumped or ridden on hard ground. Eventually she was retired to Arizona and my instructor never found another personal mount that satisfied her.
  
  
• Dolly: an ancient retired show jumper we had on lease for a year; I think she was 27 years old! There was nothing beautiful about her but she was very talented. She had been a very competitive horse on the southern California jumping circuit, and it showed. She was hot and sometimes a little bit of a smart-ass and all she really cared about was jumping. I only rode her in the ring as she got very over-excited on the trail. And once I (not on purpose) did a flip over her head and landed standing up and still holding the reins! She stopped at a jump and there I went...
  
  

Some other horses:

• Perry and Querido were both grade geldings. Perry was calm and sweet but hard to get moving. Poor Querido was the ugliest horse I have ever seen, and he had a weird 4 beat canter that could be very strange to ride.
  
  
• Hattie and Max, an Appaloosa mare and a Standardbred mare. My main objection to Hattie was her jarring gaits and desire to move like a Western pleasure horse with her head down. Even when jumping, she'd barely lift her head. A lot of this was because she had very straight shoulders. Max, well, maybe I did like Max. I rode her a lot because no one else really wanted to. She was skinny and black and impossible to make look pretty (collection? What's this 'collection' you speak of?), but Standardbreds are bred for driving, not riding. Another ugly horse. One of my horsey friends thought she had some sort of neurologic issue but I don't remember why.
  
  
• Squirt and Bella: both smallish ponies, a gelding and a mare. I rode them a lot during the first two years I was taking lessons with Helen, but got too heavy for them. They don't stand out to me as particularly bad or particularly good, though Bella was pretty.
  
  
• Angel: a huge part-thoroughbred Cremella mare, with blue eyes. I remember her as being nice for lessons, and a good jumper. She had a pretty bland personality and I wasn't quite big enough to ride her, really... she was close to 17 hands and I am happiest on a horse or pony of 14 to 14.2 hands. But I missed her when Helen sold her on during a financial crunch.
  
  
• Momma: another leased mare, the plainest little horse ever. I didn't ride her much. Her claim to fame was being pregnant and no one figuring it out until the day before the foal was born (at which point her owners confessed that they'd turned out their fancy stallion with all their grade mares during the previous summer. They made Helen really mad by not refunding any of her lease fee, even though Momma was unusable and we had to feed her colt, too.) Momma's baby, alas, was a carbon copy of her, a plain little guy exactly the same dull brown color and with the same complete lack of markings. So much for fancy stallions...
  

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

very interesting!

you'll have to post your ongoing impressions of the fff crew as you get to know them. you've heard most of mine i think, at least of the horses i know at all -- i've yet to ride or spend much time with booboo or raeray, so i'm withholding judgement mostly :)