With my first two ‘big’ horses, I often found myself reflecting upon how ‘high’ they would have gone had they had a better rider.
Worf was clearly a much better horse than I was a rider, but he was a great teacher and horse for me. He was only four when I got him. Too big and gangly for the track, his breeders saw that he had no future there and pointed him in the direction of Eventing. He ignored my foibles, my mistakes, and my nerves and just rocked on. He taught me how to be a good rider. He was the perfect horse for me at the time.
Riker took over for Worf when Worf broke down. Unlike Worf, Riker was already a seasoned horse by the time I got him. His long racing career was followed by a career as a jumper, and when that didn’t pan out, he became a fox hunter. I got him because his jump was so ‘big’ that he kept losing his owner over fences. Filled with confidence from my years with Worf, I was sure he was the perfect horse for me at the time.
Then came Scotty. After Worf and Riker, I had my eyes set on breaking into the upper levels of Eventing, Scotty was going to be my ticket. Alas, I got him too late.
By the time I got him, he had had a long and hard career as a racehorse, a stint in the grueling steeplechase world, and a very long, miserable year as a wannabe fox hunter. I often wondered where we would have gone had I gotten him earlier, before his confidence had been shattered.
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I can still remember the first time I saw Market. It was in my old coach’s barn shortly after she had ‘rescued’ him from the steeplechase word. At the time, Riker and I were still competing, so I didn’t need a new horse, but he caught my eye.
My coach, an Olympic level rider, had a great eye for good Event horses, and Market fit it to the tee. Big (17-hands), solidly built, and short-coupled (short-backed), he was built to jump. Add in movement to die for, and he had event horse written all over him. But Julie, my coach, who had found me Worf and Riker, had shifted her focus away from Eventing to fox hunting, so she pointed him that direction.
When Riker broke down a year later, I called to start the process of finding my next horse. Julie offered up Market, who had flamed out as fox hunter. I remember driving down to see him. He looked tired, almost weary, even smaller. But he was still striking to behold. I didn’t blink at the price, and an hour later Market was headed home with me.
When he got on the van, I called him Market. When he got off, I called him Scotty. He has had two names ever since.
Funny that.
Scotty racing name was ‘a.k.a - Market,’ as in: ‘also known as’ – Market. As Julie had had him for a year, she knew him as Market, so whenever I would ride with her, she would always refer to him with her name. So I did too. At home, he was my horse, so I called him my name – Scotty. 15 years later, we still do the same thing. I guess you can say his name is: ‘Scotty – a.k.a. – Market.’
As time would soon tell, Scotty’s time before me had taken its toll. What at one time was undoubtedly a phenomenally talented horse, had become a horse with a confidence issue. Having one too many bad riders as a foxhunter, he had developed a ‘stop’ to protect himself. It didn’t take me long to figure it out, and when I did, I did exactly what he needed. I went back to the basics and gave him time to learn to trust again.
For someone who was hoping to vault into the upper ranks, it was a let down. But it was what he needed, and because he was still young, I still had high expectations for us.
Under the watchful eye of my coach, Katie, Scotty regained his confidence, and soon he was turning heads at the events. His fluid movement meant he put in near flawless dressage test, beating the snot out of high priced European warmbloods. On cross country, he was a machine. Point him towards a fence, and it was yours.
Of all the photos and of all the horses I’ve competed with over the years, it’s the one of him jumping a huge table fence that is my all time favorite. The photo was taken at our peak.
We understood each other. He was on the road joining the ranks of Worf and Riker as an upper level horse and exceeding them. Had I gotten him earlier, he would already have been there.
Then it all went south.
I lent Scotty to a student to ride for her Pony Club "A" rating. She needed a horse for it, and Scotty was more then qualified to do it. When I sent him off, he was ready; when he came home, he was broken. He had come down in the middle of poorly spaced combination and blew out his left hock. I was devastated.
The next year was spent at veterinary hospitals. While surgeries allowed him to be pasture sound, he was unable to canter. With no prognosis of ever recovering, I retired him and began all over again with my next horse – Wesley. That was fine with Scotty.
Months soon became years. It was what Scotty needed in more ways then one. The bright sparkle in his eyes, which had first attracted me to him so many years back, returned. He was finally, truly, happy.
Then he made the mistake of cantering by me one day. His ‘pasture gig’ would have been up had I not been so focused on Welsey, so I ignored my urge to get on him and let time continue to heal his wounds.
When Welsey broke down, I toyed with restarting Scotty, but thought better of it, so I bought a new horse – Kit – and went on with him. I would get on Scotty occasionally, pleased to find he had returned to the horse I had remembered, just a lot older. I never pushed him. He had earned his retirement.
Kit proved my undoing.
Back to back falls shook my confidence, and no matter what, I never recovered. Just like Scotty needed time off to clear his mind after he lost his confidence, I needed time off from Kit. When Kit came down with ringbone, which ended his career, I took a long hard look at Scotty. Maybe, just maybe, he could return the favor and fix my confidence issues.
"OK, I’ve had it with competing. That’s all I’ve done for 35 years," I told Katie. "Now all I want to do is have fun."
So ten years after my favorite photo was taken, I was jumping teeny-weeny cross rails with Scotty, and that was just fine with him.
As time progressed, the cross rails became verticals, and the verticals, oxers. When the opportunity to school cross-country was offered, I hesitated, worried that the old competing bug would bite me again. I had so much fun, that it almost did, until I remembered my promise to Scotty when I pulled him out of the pasture – the promise that this time, it was just going to be about fun.
As the year went on, Scotty redeveloped all the muscles he had lost during his fat retirement years, and his jumping style returned to that of old. Sure we were only jumping half the size as in our heyday, but we were jumping them in style, and we were both having a blast!
But as much as I tried to fight it, the bug was back. I wanted to be out jumping cross-country. As that was the part of Eventing Scotty loved, he was more than willing to oblige me. So we did it. We had fun.
This summer I got a call from my old Coach - Julie, Scotty’s old owner, with an offer to go what is called ‘team chase’ – basically a cross country run but with a ‘team’ of horses, not solo as in Eventing.
"Come on Mike, bring Market down. It will be fine. The fences will be small."
Now that should have been the giveaway. What is small to an Olympic rider is not even in the same ballpark as what I considered small. Something I realized only too late when I showed up for the Chase was that the fences where huge! Huge!
To make matters worse, I had talked myself into it figuring Julie could give us the led over fences, knowing full well Market (aka Scotty) would follow her, only to discover Julie and her husband both had young horses and were expecting me to give them a led!
Add into the mix the environment reminded one of the gathering for a fox hunt, which brought back Market’s PTSD and, well let’s just say, I think I peed 13 times, Market 12, before we were called to the start gate.
I steeled myself for the worse, and what I got was the very best.
I approached the first fence tentatively and let Market get his wits about him. By the time he landed, he had already set his sight on the second fence and was racing towards it.
Having spent years working with Katie to recover from my confidence issues, I sat up and rode like I know how to ride, and I did. We were not running as fast as Julie would have liked us to. Based upon the number of times she yelled at me to ‘move on,’ it was more because she was out of control, and Market and I were very much in control.
When we had to make sharp turns going down hills, Market drew upon his dressage training to balance himself and executed them flawlessly, while my teammates struggled to keep their horses upright or from falling down completely.
It was a blast. I’m sure I was wearing the smile I wore the day my favorite picture of us was taken.
When we finally got back to the trailer, Julie and her husband’s horse were covered in sweat and blowing like a fat man who had just run 100 yards after a wayward beer can. Market had hardly broken a sweat and looked at me with this expression: ‘That was fun. Can we do it again?’
He was wearing the smile he wore when my favorite picture was taken.
We both wore our smiles all the way home.
As I drove, I again found myself wondering where we would have gone had I gotten Scotty earlier. But at 65 and 25 years old respectively, it no longer really mattered. We still had it, and had helped each other restore each other’s confidence, and that, in the long run, was all that mattered.
