Turning a full circle

"Turn full circle"
To return to the original or a similar position, situation, or circumstance where one or something started.

In 2002, my father bought me my second horse; a replacement for my outgrown first pony who had been passed on to my younger cousins.  They say that it's not the first horse that you buy a child which is the most important to nurture their love of riding, but the second.  Ponies are generally more amenable and particularly where I come from, a good first pony can go around several families in its lifetime, teaching numerous children how to ride.  My first pony was an ex-riding school pony; a point-and-go.  Stubborn to load, great to gallop.  Broke several cavaletti poles by simply deciding to stop jumping mid-jump.  We had a great time despite him getting on in years when he first came to me (I was 7, he was 27).

No, it's the second horse which is the make-or-break for a child's future with horses. You get too big for ponies and you venture into the world of horses.  It can be expensive to find a schoolmaster, so your parents try to compromise on some aspects in order to meet their budget; after all, you're of an age now where you as a rider need to develop with the horse.  My parents got it wrong.  In hindsight, they got it very, very wrong.  The compromise was too great, and what we ended up with was a split personality ex-racehorse whose riding career had probably consisted of being sat on a few times.  Of course, aged 13, I didn't know any better and I just got on with it.

Her name was Runnis Smokey.  She was an 8 year old black Standardbred mare by Rajah Lobell out of Columbia Square, by Cover Up.  She was only 14.3hh, but what she lacked in height she made up for with heart.  No more docile a horse to handle on the ground have I met before or since; no more unpredictable a horse to ride have I ever sat on.

I broke my elbow the first time she bucked me off.
I damaged both my ankles on subsequent falls.
I caused serious damage to my neck and back in my worst fall, which I will take some of the blame for as I was racing my friend at the time, but these are injuries which still plague me today in the form of chronic back pain, migraines and nerve damage.

But, we also had a great deal of fun.  We tried showing (no good, she bucked repeatedly in canter in her second and final local show in which we were placed last), jumping (we picked up numerous rosettes for low level jumping at local shows, were one of two participants who completed an XC course from a group of 5 - 4 of whom were on ready-made jumping ponies and not mad pacing hotheads, and spent hours jumping over home-made cross-poles made from fence posts and tyres), dressage (never mastered the canter to trot transition without a few strides of pacing, but otherwise weren't too bad at this) and hunting (BRILLIANT, endless stamina, could gallop as fast as any other horse and was great in traffic/amongst other horses).

Smokey & I at opening meet with the Irfon & Tywi, November 2003

 One summer our Pony Club entered two teams into the Area 10 Horse & Pony Care Championships.  Somehow, Smokey became the nominated 'practice horse'.  She spent hours being bandaged (all four legs and tail), plaited (forelock, mane and tail AND the plaits were sewn up with thread) and rugged by 6 very enthusiastic under-12s on overturned buckets, and 3 not-so-enthusiastic over-12s who dreaded having to take apart and put back together another double bridle.  It worked though, as we won and went on to represent our Area at the Nationals.

On the downside, Smokey's unwillingness in PC ridden events meant that we kept being moved down a group; whilst my peers advanced, I was 'kept back a class'.  After she was sold, I borrowed numerous horses and returned to my original class where I no longer struggled.  It's not like I'm a rubbish rider, I simply had a horse with a mind of its own.  And at times I loved her for it.  At others, I secretly hated her.  Note: these moments were few and far between.

She was sold in 2006 after numerous failed attempts to get her in foal after her first foal in 2004.  It broke my heart.

Smokey with her White Heat filly foal in 2004

In 2013, a transfer of ownership form landed on my desk at STAGBI.  Six months after she had been sold, a gentleman from the Midlands had purchased her to breed from.  He had owned her ever since, and was only then getting his paperwork sorted.  I tried to buy her there and then, but he wanted to keep her a little while longer.  He compromised by telling me I could have her back when he'd finished breeding from her.  I'll admit, I thought that may never happen.

But it did.

On Sunday 17th April, after goodness knows how many setbacks, I saw Smokey again for the first time in nearly 10 years.  My first thought was 'How on earth did I get away with riding a horse as small as that?!'.  She seems to have shrunk, or my perspective has been warped by having Missile and Star (16hh and 15.3hh respectively) as my two most recent mounts.

Smokey upon arriving in Scotland, 22 years young

Smokey is now living out her days in a field with our other 'lifers', the horses destined never to leave our ownership:  Dark Velvet and Shes Some Deal (Star), as well as Eternal Flame, Wild Bill Hikock and Crosshill Amethyst whose futures with us aren't as set in stone.

'That's a nice story', I hear you say, 'but what has that got to do with circles?'.  So I've got her back, big deal.  What's so special about her anyway?  Nothing she's ever bred has ever reached the racetrack; most of them were partbreds.  She herself never won many races or clocked any decent times.

Yet, because of Smokey I landed myself a job with Colin and Shirley Bevan working as a groom and rider when I was 16.  When I was 18, I was asked back to work for them for the spring and summer, and every subsequent spring and summer until I left Wales in 2014.  Because I was working for Colin & Shirley, I was at Tregaron races in August 2010 where I met Emma Langford, who introduced me to John Smart.  We'll have been together 6 years this autumn.  Because I met John Smart, I found out about the part time STAGBI admin job which was available shortly after I left uni.

Because of all of that, I'm a STAGBI director, living in Scotland with my racing-mad, horse-daft, other half, looking after 14 Standardbreds and racing from May until nearly November each year.

Runnis Smokey started all of that.

She was my first Standardbred.
I'll be her last owner.

Over and out,

#1 Groom

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/embrace_2.html