It was early 2009… nothing had changed regarding Ducati… I was still scared. My friend who visited and worked with Ducati didn’t understand what it was about him that made me scared…. until this particular day. She saw him put on a ‘turn’ – when circling. He backed away, reared up and then raced away!!
We talked about how maybe a smaller, less athletic horse would help me with my confidence. – and now she had seen Ducati’s ‘performance’. It relieved the guilt I felt. Someone else could finally see what I was worried about. In my mind, I obviously needed someone else’s approval to justify the fear I felt.
There is an overriding feeling in a large part of the horse world that you should swallow your fear and ‘just do it’. For me that stemmed from my first experiences of riding horses. When the little pony I rode would constantly shy and I would end up on the road – when at times she shied so badly she fell over as well – my teacher Tex would say “Well what are you doing down there!! Get back on!!!” – and so I did – dutifully – all the while wondering when the next fall would be. Here is the pony I’m talking about
I still loved those lessons. I would go with a mix of fear and excitement. But I would never admit how scared I was. I guess horses were so healing despite my fear. Our Dad had died suddenly the year before. The horses had been my saviours through the difficult time – I found them very comforting…..
So – I felt like I had given myself ‘permission’ to look for a smaller horse – to give me confidence.
I had another friend looking for a horse – so we went along to the next Performance Horse sale. She was looking for something similar – same height – not too fast!!! As the day went on, I didn’t see any horses that appealed to me – of course we were once again at a sale where the focus was on campdrafting horses!! I still had this dream of finding the ultimate Australian Stock Horse. It was, I guess, a romantic dream. I wanted to find a beautiful black stock horse – something like this!
I really admired these horses – but the dream didn’t really match with me wanting a smaller, slower horse than Ducati. After all – he was a registered Australian Stock Horse and I wouldn’t ride him!!
My friend also had no luck at the sale – but before we headed for home I found her chatting with a couple of people. One of them – let’s call him Max – said he had a couple of horses if she wanted to have a look. He was headed home if we wanted to call in. So off we went to look at two horses – which he assured us would be just what we were looking for!!!
**Dream horse in the Feature Image is Monty Gwynne’s Icaro! Here is a link to her website! – Equispeak.
COMING UP – DANNY JOINS THE HERD!!!
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS STORY, PLEASE START HERE AT THE BEGINNING – Part 1 – An Introduction
PLEASE SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE FOR PREVIOUS BLOG POSTS
HorseMagic 