Pav was down in Chincoteague being leased by a friend of Danielle and my summer roommate, Katye Allen.
I'd like to take a quick side road here to make note of another event that helped drive me I the ground that summer. I had big plans to event my boys that summer, and had already signed up for one event. Since both of my horses suddenly were out of the picture, Kerra offered her beloved old mare, Lin, as a mount for the show. Lin was in her mid twenties but didn't act a day over 6, an I was excited to ride such a bold mare in my first event. I went to the event with Lin, and Katye and Pav came, too. We did our dressage and then Kate and I rode through the woods to get to the jump ring and cross country field. We came to a very tiny stream. Pav didn't want to cross. Katye insisted, but Pav panicked and threw himself backward into me an Lin. Lin staggered back a few steps, and next thing I know, shes holding a hind leg up so high it was nearly next to me sitting in the saddle. I got off to find that she had backed into a large stick and ripped a hole in her fetlock to the bone. I took her back to the trailer, wrapped her to stop the bleeding and managed to fun a vet to come out and stitch her up. After weeks of recovery she ended up fine. I was in hysterics after she was stitched. My horse died, the other lame, I still manage to get to my very first event with an awesome horse, and she rips up her leg. I went to start the truck. The battery was dead. I was beside myself. I get like I was down as low as I could get but someone just kept kicking me for extra laughs.
After Eclipse went lame, I started riding Pav. Katye was starting to figure out that Pav wasn't really a horse for her, so when I found myself suddenly without a ride, I took over his lease for the rest of the summer. I didn't do much more with him than just ride him a few times a week, but I did manage to get him to one event at the end of the summer. Let's just say Pav is not an eventer.
Pav thinks you are supposed to run up to cross country fences at warp speed, then spook at it and stop dead right in front of it, then lauch over it while trying to look at it at the same time. I just tried to stay on.
The last couple of weeks I was down in VA, Pav went lame. We thought abscess but the farrier didn't find anything. I didn't know much about Pav at the time, but found out from Danielle that he's prone to white line disease if you don't have his feet shod just so, and I'm sure the dry, sandy ground in VA didn't help. His feet started to crumble apart, and that's about when I felt pushed over the edge and needed to go home. I trailered Eclipse and Pav to Knights Landing. The Gehman's farrier took care of Pav but it would be several weeks before he was ready to ride again. His grumblings about how he had worked so hard to keep Pavs feet in good order and they were ruined made me feel like a failure. I knew it wasn't my fault...none of y bad luck over the summer was my fault...but by now I could hardly sleep anymore and my stomach was constantly churning. If you looked at me wrong, I probably would have sobbed.
I decided to continue to lease Pav until I could figure out what to do...buy a new horse or not. So he and Eclipse went to school with me my Junior year.
Pav and I had a love hate relationship. I used him in my lessons and team practices and he taught me a lot about jumping and helped me start to jump higher fences. He got me up to 4' that semester, which was cool...but it was a constant struggle to get him to round over his jumps rather than take off an jump flat. We did a ton of grid work!
Eventing team practice...I wish my trainer told me to shorten my stirrups!!!
And while Pav didn't like learning the nitty gritty of flatwork, I managed to school him through third level dressage movements, and he helped me learn to half pass at trot and canter, half pirouette, and extend and collect the trot. We even started taking a few passage steps...they weren't the best, but he and I started to learn. It was always a fight, but when Pav started to realize that I wouldn't give in and let him off easy, he started to work a little better for me.
Pav also taught me about how to fit and use a double bridle. He's a strong bodied and strong willed horse with a hard mouth and hard sides, so my instructor figured we should take advantage of having a horse like him that couldn't care less what we tried with him and have me learn about double bridles. I'm really glad I had that opportunity to learn about doubles and how to use them and why.
At a clinic in VA this past fall
While Pav taught me a lot, he wasn't the horse for me and I wanted a horse of my own again. I kept Pav a semester and returned him when I found and purchased my next horse, Hyde.
I searched high and low and found little Hyde, then named Callahan (Callie for short) in North Carolina with a small time dressage trainer. She had her horses marked way down to clean house before a big barn move to Georgia.
The video that made me drive down to North Carolina for a look at Hyde
Hyde was an 8 year old, dark bay Holsteiner/TB cross who stood at an honest 16 hands, but his compact and refined build made him look no bigger than 15.2 on a good day. He was little, but at the same time when you met him, he looked like a major powerhouse. Not sure how he managed to look much littler than he really was but look very very powerful at the same time.
Hyde had some quality training under his belt and was fun to ride, but he was HOT. A little spitfire. When I bought him, I renamed him Charlemagne (sounded more powerful than Callahan) and gave him the barn name, Hyde. He definitely had a Jekyll and Hyde personality, and it was goofy. If you walked by his stall without paying him any mind, he'd snake his head out and lunge at you, lips drawn back and ears flat against his head...he looked like he would rip your throat open if he could get close enough. But if you looked at him and said his name in a baby voice and told him how silly he was being, his ears would prick straight up and he was the friendliest, sweetest, quietest thing. He was never mean or dangerous at ALL, but he sure put on a show sometimes.
I'm not mean, it just depends on how you talk to me :) See his little "milk moustache" snip?
Hyde was something else. He was hard for me to learn to ride because of how hot he was and how much attitude he put into his work. If I didn't ride him just so he would rocket off and I'd have to struggle to keep his energy in control. But he taught me a ton about dressage and was a stunning mover and extremely talented. This horse had the stuff to go all the way in dressage, but I still had my mind stuck on eventing. So I started to teach him to jump, too. While it was difficult to teach him to jump politely, he really seemed to like it and had a lot of scope.
I rode him in clinics and lessons and team practices and he always drew a lot of attention. He may have been small, but his dark bay, extremely dappled coat, big powerful beautiful gaits, and "outta my way" attitude attracted eyes. I was told many times that this horse was something special.
Dapples! And the picture doesn't even show them that well
Unfortunately, I was still very broken from all of the events that had happened to me not only over the summer, but for the entire span of owning horses (I had forgotten to mention that I lost a year and a half of riding with Sara due to a misdiagnosed lameness and bad farrier work, and 4 months with Minnow because of the quarantine AND she strained a tendon after quarantine) I felt so hopeless, every time I tried to advance my riding, start showing, start making something of myself with my horses, something horrible happened. So every time I rode Hyde, I felt like it was pointless. And he wasn't Sara or Lou or Eclipse. So Hyde didn't really have a good chance with me. I decided I didn't like him, all while I knew I did actually like him. I think I just didn't want to risk thinking that I could actually finally start working toward any of my goals anymore. I was exhausted with the constant disappointment and heartache. I advertised him for sale on and off.
I kept him through my senior year. I started to like him a bit more when I used him as my project horse in an elective class I took called "Training the Therapy Horse." I took the class for fun...Hyde would never EVER be a therapy horse! But the class was fun and we build a bit of a bond as we worked on perfecting his groundwork. I taught him to walk, trot and stop with me without a halter. I could get him to circle around me at the walk and trot without a halter. I could get him to go sideways or backwards without a halter. He would ground tie and stay put while I left the ring or cracked a bull whip behind him. I could get him to drop his head and completely relax by just pointing to the ground. It was really cool to be able to take such a hot little horse and get him to work like that for me. But even so, I kept my relationship with Hyde at an arms length.
A sale video of Hyde. We were having a bad day and major saddle fit issues but he was a trooper. I wish I had a GOOD video of him.
The last week of my Senior year, Hyde was playing in the ring and suddenly went very lame. On a hind leg.
After some time off didn't help, a vet came out to investigate. Sure enough, under those windpuffs was a micro tear in his suspensory ligament.
At this time I had Hyde, Eclipse, Sara and Moosey down in MD with me at my first job. Eclipse was still on partial stall rest and very strict turnout and it was questionable if he would stay pasture sound. Sara was suffering from her mysterious neurological issues and was starting to lose weight. Moose was underweight and this was also the first time she actually got to stay with me, and I didn't have the time to handle the young filly, and now Hyde was on stall rest too. This is when I had enough. I hated horses. I didn't want to look at them anymore. I was done.
I gave Sara to my aunt and mom in Lancaster. My aunt wanted a pet and my mom didn't want to see Sara go, she loved her and knew I did too, deep down.
I gave Hyde away to a vet in PA. I didn't care if his prognosis was pretty good. I didn't want to deal with another rehab and another potential disappointment. He's doing very well today, he's sound and doing local dressage shows (I'm hoping to run into him this year!) Apparently, she loves him. He now goes by the name Charlie.
This picture is very warped, but this is Hyde at a show with his new owner, Anita
Moosey stayed only because she technically belongs to my mom, and she didn't want me to do anything drastic and regret it. I did post her for sale on and off but never followed through. I sent her to the raising department at Hilltop to run the big fields with other horses her age and ignored her.
I started to try to find other things in life other than horses. I started to get more miserable. Hilltop also wasn't a great fit for me and I didn't want anything to do with horses ever again.
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