Or, Why You Should Never Question Your Mother

Once upon a time I was 14 and was looking for a project pony. When I say “project pony,” a few requirements were obvious (at least to me). The thing had to be broke enough that I wouldn’t die. It had to have some athleticism. It had to be young but sensible.

So when my mom came to the barn and declared that she had bought me a pony out of the neighbor’s field, I was of course excited, but also skeptical. I mean, how good could a pony out of our neighbor’s field be? I should have asked how bad. How bad could the pony be would have been more appropriate.

But before we get to that let me give you the dirt on the neighbors. You know those “country folk” that have 13 kids running barefoot around the backyard and chickens, goats, pigs, sheep, and cows running wild around the front yard? And the people other neighbors take problem horses to because of their “untraditional” training methods? The ones with the old broken wooden fences and the hay everywhere? Yeah, that was who my mom bought the pony from.

Her story, I kid you not, was that she was driving by and she saw 3 kids riding the pony around bareback together. And she promptly stopped the car and bought the pony.

He was a Tennessee Walking Horse/Welsh cross. Their welsh pony (who they incidentally had bought from my mom) had gotten in with the Tennessee Walking Horse stud when she was in season and behold, this accident of an equine. They called him Cowboy, but I called him Sam. He was 5 years old, completely black with no markings, and about 13.3.

He had the worst conformation I had ever seen. I had recently studied conformation in depth in preparation for my Pony Club ratings, so I knew what horses were supposed to look like. This pony looked EXACTLY like the “bad conformation” example from my Pony Club manual. Down to his gigantic head, small eyes, roman nose, short neck, loooooong back, and long croup. None of his angles matched like the horses in the book.

I was so stunned that my mom would pick this pony up basically off the side of the road. I was encouraged that at least she had found out that he wasn’t gaited, and I decided to give this eyesore a chance and see what his temperament was like. When I turned him out into my round pen all my previous encouragement was instantly gone. He tried to run me over going through the gate and bolted off before I could unclip the lead rope. He ran, bucking and plunging, for 10 minutes straight.

Then something completely unexpected happened. I noticed that he kept running to one side of the round pen, which was fortified with 5’ steel panels. He kept running to this side and stopping abruptly. Then, as I looked on with longe whip in hand, he proceeded to JUMP AND CLEAR the 5’ panels and gallop down the hill toward his old home (which was about 2 miles away), jumping any fence or irrigation line that was in his way. He ran all the way home, and I turned and yelled to my mom to get the trailer because we were going to get my new jumper prospect back!

Sam proceeded to jump out of every paddock and stall I put him in. I finally put him in a 12x12 and he stayed in. The problem with this was that he was so wild I could barely handle him once he was out of the pen. It seemed that the neighbor boys had taught Sam how to go, but not how to stop, and definitely hadn’t taught him any semblance of ground manners.

I enlisted the help of a local groundwork guru. She was a formidable woman who was quite broad and had long since been too heavy to ride, but she was known for her prowess with groundwork. She helped me immensely with Sam, but I will never forget one day when she decided he needed to learn to not try to go through the gate while being ridden. After many failed attempts at me riding him past the gate, she decided the best thing to do would be to keep the gate open and stand herself in the gateway, because “he will NOT go through me”. I knew Sam well enough at this point to have my doubts. Sure enough, when I tried to ride by, he threw his shoulder into her like a linebacker, knocked her onto her butt in the dirt and bolted off with me. I decided to feign loss of control and gallop on a bit before coming back to face whatever was waiting back at the arena!

Sam taught me so much about horses and their different personalities. He taught me humility when he decided to buck me off in front of a whole cluster of guys that were working in the neighboring orchard, galloping home and leaving me to the walk of shame. He taught me to be patient and try to understand horses and their quirks instead of using force, like how the ride would go so much better if I just conceded and waited until after breakfast but before dinner. He taught me to persevere when he would throw his head down to eat grass or weeds, even at a full gallop, causing me to go soaring over his head. I would catch him, pop his head back up, and go off galloping again, watching more closely this time for any sign of him wanting to eat! He taught me how amazing horses can be if they truly enjoy their job. Once he learned to jump there was no stopping him. He had a true passion for it, and it showed. Even at his petite 13.3 hands we would go clean over 3’3” courses at local jumper schooling shows, and he took me through my first beginner novice event. If you turn him out into an arena with jumps in it, 9 times out of 10 he will canter over the jumps just for fun. He showed me how much laughter horses can bring into our lives when, while I was braiding him, he ate an ENTIRE ziplock bag of rainbow colored rubber braiding elastics. I called my vet in a panic but he assured me that he would be fine (other than having rainbow colored manure).

I am lucky enough to still have Sam at my barn. He continues to teach dozens of kids the same lessons he taught me, and I will forever treasure this conformationally-deficient, mischief-making, in-denial-of-being-a-pony, pony.

Share your favorite Sam stories, or just pony stories, with us in the comments!

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