Ah yes... the year of the "pants" pony. Well, we sure wish it had been a year. But we are getting to that. 2012 would be a tough year. Remember that it started with Sophie's pony, Giggles, having an accident on the ice and being laid up. Giggles was bred to RY Major Equity during her year "off" and Sophie had to learn another new pony. Again. For the third year in a row.
To begin with, we weren't sure if Levi was going to cut it as a kids' pony. We took him to board at a local barn and enlisted the help of the barn owner. Levi was a little hot, a little full of himself and a little too much for an 8 and under kiddo. We had the barn owner ride him once. In his words, he just needed one "iron injection" and he was a broke pony after that. Aka - Levi needed his butt handed to him and forever after that he was a good boy.
Well - don't get me wrong, that pony could have his whinnying, buddy sour moments. I'll never forget the one show where she trotted up to the judge in showmanship and the big poop whipped his butt around to look out the arena gate. But he was SAFE. He took good care of Sophie and he could jog a hole in the ground. He never missed a lead and did everything Sophie and I asked of him. I loved riding that big white butthead but I was more than willing to share him with Sophie. And she loved sharing him with others. Long after their classes were done, Levi was out giving pony rides to all the little kids. Sophie was so proud of the BFG (Big FRIENDLY Gelding, get your minds out of the gutter.)
We did our POA shows and also attended several open shows in the SEMSCA circuit again. She was the "Unbeatable Sophie" again as she never lost a western pleasure class in walk/trot. And then there was the show where we let her try the w/t/l horsemanship class. The class started with rail work. Sophie was golden. It was a big class but Levi had the slowest easy lope and she sat like a champ. Then the judge picked the top 8 to come to the line up and do the pattern. We had never practiced lope patterns. He told them what he wanted them to do. I can't remember it exactly. It was something like "lope off on the left lead, make a circle, switch leads and then jog back to your spot." Guess who had to go first. She looked back at me frantically and said "Which leg?"
Not understanding her question I replied, "left and then right."
She nodded and then proceeded to do the exact opposite. She did it the pattern well, just backwards. She was so mad at me later and I asked her why. She said I told her wrong. Turns out I didn't know what she meant. She didn't know leads, she just knew what leg SHE was supposed to use to ask for a lead. So... I should have said "right and then left" so she could have cued him correctly. Oops. Bad momma moment. Needless to say we worked on leads after that.
Sophie and Levi were just starting to come together as a team when we lost Levi to a tragic pasture accident. I watched it happen. He was running across the field and kicked up a small rock - maybe 6 inches across and shattered his fetlock. The black cloud that hovered over Sophie had struck again.
In true Giggle fashion, she had bounced back from her injury so pregnant Giggles was brought back into show shape and hit the road with Sophie to finish out her year. It wasn't until that last show of the year, Spooktacular, when we had to borrow a girth from someone who had a big old hunt seater's girth in their trailer that we realized just how pregnant Giggles was getting. She was huge but gave it her all. That same Spooktacular was the debut for Sophie's upcoming show pony for the next season. We had thought Levi was white. HA! We had just bought her the whitest white pony in POA at the POA sale. Yep - it's time for the year of Cotton.
PS - Check out that belly on Giggles. LOL That's baby Luna in there.
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