# Predictably Unpredictable



## kathrynpipki (Jan 28, 2019)

Hello! Howdy! Hi! 

Hey y’all, I’m new to the forum! I decided to kick off my time here by starting a journal. I typically keep a personal journal and love it so I think it would be fun to have a public equine-type journal. My epiphanies and soul searching have all occurred to me while in the presence of or on the back of a horse and I think it would be interesting to document the thoughts I have while working with horses.

I’ve had horses all my life. I honestly can’t remember a day in my 26 years of existence that I haven’t had a horse. I have always ridden English and hunter/jumper; however, I’m broadening my horizons and beginning to dabble in western. My momma has had horses all of her life: mainly training and riding OTTB’s and competing in hunter and jumper competitions. My great aunt trains and conditions horses for 3 day eventing and also gives riding lessons. The “horse gene” runs in the family, to say the least.

But..

The past few years I’ve taken a serious hiatus from horses and the horse world. I didn’t want to, but it just kind of happened because of.. well, life. Between school, work, getting married to my husband, James, and moving across the country from Georgia to Arizona; finding time to ride and spend time with my horses has been difficult, to say the least. When we made the move, I had to leave my horse behind at my moms barn in Georgia, for now. 

When James and I got to our land in Arizona, the first thing we did was start the house building process and building corrals for horses. James travels A LOT for work so we collectively decided it would be fun (for the time being) to travel together in our 5th wheel for his work while everything is being built. 

As of the time I’m writing this, we are currently staying at an RV park close to James’ job site that doubles as boarding stables for the snowbirds who travel south with their horses for the winter. We will probably be here for at least 6 months. So we’re in a very horsey community and hopefully I can get my horse out here soon. However, one of his coworkers has horses here and said I could ride them if I wanted. 

In my first posts, I’m going to introduce my horses. After that I will begin my journal and I’ll do a little catching up on what’s been going on so y’all know the context of the events happening now.

I like for my my personal journal to have structure so I’m going to do that here as well. You can expect my journals to be broken into two segments: 
First part: “Experience” talking about what I did with the horses that day
Second part: “Reflection” reflecting/epiphanies/takeaways from the day

It’s going to be a crazy ride but I’m excited to share it!

Thank you and I hope you enjoy reading!


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## kathrynpipki (Jan 28, 2019)

Horse Introduction:

Freckles










Freckles is my first pony! My mom got her for me when I was 4 years old. 

Before Freckles came along, I had been riding my moms old thoroughbred mare that she used to jump back in the day, but she passed away due to her old age- she lived to be in her upper 20s. So that left me with nothing *sane enough* to ride. 

Enter, Freckles. Freckles came from a big pony jumper barn in Florida. At one point in her life, she was one of the top ranked Florida large pony jumpers. She was about 10 years old and flashy. She was so white, that when the sun was shining on her, it hurt your eyes to look at her because she was so bright white. Awesome mover. Anyway, my mom rode her, liked her, spent way too much money on her, and brought her home for me. 

Freckles was the perfect babysitter. She was always looking out for me when I rode her. If she felt me slipping off she would carefully slow down or stop so I could readjust my seat. That pony taught me how to truly ride. 

A few years later, I was ready to start schooling over ground poles and teeny-tiny jumps. I felt like I was jumping over the moon. However, as the years passed and the jump cups lifted a little higher, my mom started to notice that Freckles kept getting faster and faster and more anxious in the arena. We eventually figured out that she was burned out at the other barn before us from jumping jumps that were honestly just too much for her. If we showed in a flatwork class with no jumps or small jumps in the arena, she was fine. But if the flat class had bigger jumps in it, she would lose it and even try to jump them on her own. Just the presence of bigger jumps in an arena made her freak out. I never jumped Freckles over anything higher than 18” because my mom wanted me to take it slow and learn how to fully control a horse over the small stuff and have a solid foundation before I moved to anything bigger; something I’ll always appreciate her for. So on our end, there was no explanation for her anxiety about big jumps. The only conclusion we could come to was that she had done a lot of tough jumping in her past and it had effected her mentally. But that was okay because I loved her anyway. 

Even though I didn’t get to go as far and do all the things I wanted to do with her, she still taught me some very valuable lessons- not only about horses but about myself as well. She taught me what hard work and determination was all about. She was a good pony but as most ponies do, they don’t always take it easy on you. She made me work for her respect and her trust and that’s something I’ll never forget. 

We decided to retire her when I was 12 and let her be a fat, happy pasture ornament. I still took her out on the trails just for fun every now and then. She was probably around 18 at this time.

As the years went on, I moved to bigger horses, doing bigger things. But I always applied the lessons she taught me. I would ride another horse in the arena and I can remember she would stand at the edge of her paddock watching me ride; almost like she was coaching the other horse and reminding me to keep my heels down. 

Even though I had other horses, Freckles was always my favorite and my best friend. I mean, I’d known her my whole life. If I had a bad day, she was the first “person” I wanted to talk to. If I had a great day, you can bet I was at the barn telling her all about it. Even into my twenties she’s continued to be one of my most trusted confidants. 

I always thought that Freckles would live forever. I know I was setting myself up for heartache thinking like that but it just seemed wrong to think about her not being in my life. 

However, reality slapped me hard in the face the when I realized her final day was near. I won’t go into specific details, but arthritis had gotten the best of her, even though we tried everything we could to make her comfortable. It also seemed she was losing touch on reality. She acted scared of people and acted like she had no idea who any of the people who loved her the past 21 years were. It was heartbreaking to see my best friend struggle through what seemed to be a horse version of Alzheimer’s and barely able to walk because she was in pain. 

There were days, though, where she was “normal” and I’d have my friend back for just a moment. I never took that time for granted. 

November 1, 2017 was the day we decided it wasn’t fair for her to be in pain any longer. So the vet came and he agreed it was time. She was actually having one of her good days; her arthritis wasn’t hurting her so bad, she wasn’t scared and she knew who I was... She got lots of love, thank you’s, and treats. She always felt like family to us because she had been around for so long and basically my whole family was there to say their goodbyes. The vet guessed her age to be in the mid 30s. I believe she lived a good and happy life.

Freckles was my best friend and the special one that sparked my passion for horses.


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