Yes I was on the road, persevering, heading toward that goal.  Yes, I spent as much time as I could riding, taking lessons, preparing, focusing on the 2017 show season.  Yes I seem to have come upon a road block, a detour of sorts.

For several years I have been dealing with some sort of leg pain.  Some thought it was my IT band, I spent countless dollars at massage therapists and physical therapists that pounded and manipulated me into some sense of comfort.  But it only got worse.  Finally I decided perhaps an orthopedic doc could set me straight.  Well if you could call the diagnosis of bone on bone osteoarthritis a diagnosis then I did get one.  At my initial appointment on January 6th we thought  we could get away with a cortisone  injection.  optimistically, since I was still able to get on Gracie and have a mostly effective ride, that seemed the way to go.  Let’s see, injection on March 3rd, first show on April 27th, get through to Scottsdale in September then schedule that hip replacement.    Ah the best laid plans…on February 17th I went to the barn for my mid day lesson.  By now I had devised a way of mounting that caused me the minimum of pain.  Get you left foot in the stirrup and lean your body as far forward as you could, sticking that right leg straight out, ease it into place, wince, wait, walk on.  Well frankly that right leg was going nowhere that day, stuck as it were.  Needless to say this girl called her doctor that afternoon and schedule surgery for March 9th.  So here I am 18 days after surgery and nowhere near ready to show.

I have had to readdress this year’s goals, missing the first show or two.  My hope is that I can be patient enough to heal properly so that when I am ready to go back I will be 100% ready.  What I have learned is that getting a new hip is not like getting a new tooth, it is a major surgery, with lots of healing.  I know that I will be stronger and a better rider and no longer in pain and for that I am thankful.  The road sign that says Detour has pointed me in a different direction for now.  From my couch or living room chair I can surf the web, check out the latest on http://www.GoHorseShow.com (my showing go to source), check out all the AQHA  judges perspective videos, pin interesting show outfits, and otherwise horse related pins on Pinterest. Oh I am also, sadly, constantly looking at Facebook for news on the exploits and accomplishments of my horse showing buddies.

Having just started my blog a few weeks ago I had no idea that I would be so close to ending one of the chapters in my horse life. I envisioned chronicling each of my horse stories in random order, Jaima, my first horse, the Arab mare, Shonto, my second horse, my boy, my heart, my soul, Mica, the free horse, Bowie, the attempt to step up to the show pen, Gracie my little AQHA mare, my current love interest! so many lessons learned with each of them; lessons I will share in due time.

But this post, this will touch on what I will be going through the next few weeks with Shonto. Shonto, the big Paint gelding that gave me so much joy and so much heartache. I have had him for 14 of his 18 years. We have been through a lot together, more on each chapter in greater detail later. He gave me confidence and hope and was my first show horse. He packed me around, ignoring what I did not know. I can just imagine how much more it could have been had I had the skills I have now. But I did not, and he never ever minded. The “if onlys” don’t matter in the end do they? If only he was correct in confirmation and not had so many physical issues, if only we had more time, if only I had at least taken him out on the trail more, if only…

The tumor that he had removed from his sheath in June has returned. I had a feeling that was the problem when I had Matt come up for fall maintenance this week. His morning and evening nickers were gone. After a brief examination Matt said that we were done, that I should think about putting him down sooner than later, that I had been a “champ”, that I had kept him going when most people would have put him down. Now I don’t have a choice, I have to let him go. You know how broken my heart is right? I know you do. How do I plan for this? be practical and pragmatic? The reality is that winter has arrived in the mountains of New Mexico, there will be no putting him down and burying him here on the property. The reality of bringing him to Matt’s and having his remains disposed of is so hard to think about.

I will have my own ceremony here at home and in the next few weeks I will focus on him, making him comfortable, fussing over him, getting all my last moments.

From the very beginning to now

Hard to believe it all started here, there on a porch railing.  We threw a rag rug over the railing and tied some rope to a porch upright and started dreaming!  As most of our childhood memories I remember the porch being bigger.  It was painted a glossy gray.  It was my friend Laurie’s grandfather’s house and we spent lots of time playing on that porch.  truthfully I found a recent photo of it on line but I can’t use it.  That porch was from the fifties, I lived in the tenement railroad apartment building next to it.  At that time those homes were on the edge of the ghetto, now images that I have found show how run down and in the midst of Waterbury’s inner city ghetto that address has become.   Unless I find a photo from my childhood you will just have to imagine it.

Where the dream came from I am not quite sure.  I was probably 5 or 6, living in Waterbury Connecticut, the child of working class Italian immigrants (well my mother anyway,  my dad was first generation Italian American).  My only access to horses would be when we would take rides in the “country”, which would be the rural suburbs of Middlebury, Southbury, Woodbury and there I would see them,  standing in lush green pastures, behind white rail fences.

There was a riding stable in Woodbury where for a small fee you could put your kid on a horse and have them led around a paddock.  The few times that we stopped, and this chubby little five year old was treated to a ride, were the pinnacle of my horse exposure and experience!

I imagine they must have had real lessons and actual students but taking riding lessons in Connecticut was so beyond anything I could have imagined at that age!  Middlebury, Southbury, Woodbury where doctors and lawyers and captains of industry lived!  Their kids took riding lessons.  I rode porch railings.  And I read.

I had no horse blood in my family. No one rode, no one understood.  No one scooped me up on their horse and held me as they rode.  I did not bounce around in the saddle with my mom or my aunt or my uncle or my dad.  I was not propped up as an infant to sit on a mountain of a horse to learn at that early age that anything was possible!!  That I could do anything!  Nope I learned all that much later…in fact I am still learning it.

Horses, something of their magic touched my little soul and I brought it back to the city with me.  Closed my eyes while I rode on the porch railing and dreamt of my own horse.  Little did I know where it would eventually lead me!