Brenda (Show name Brenda Star)
Brenda
wasn't broke when we went to see her. In fact she wasn't even
halter broke. She was quietly munching on a pile of hay in a small
paddock on Connie Pass's farm. Connie was a local thoroughbred breeder
that Chris and I had known for years. Over time, we have bought or
traded several horses with Connie and had become friends with her an
her husband. Connie knew our operation well and when she came upon a
possibly suitable horse, she would give us a call.
Brenda was
typical of what we often bought of Connie's. 3 years old, no papers,
thoroughbred. Bred for racing, but because of something (divorce, no
money, neglect) she had never been papered and never been broke for the
track. Now, she was just too old to mess with. The price was right
(cheap), and Chris and I were looking for a young prospect, so we took
her home. I started working with Brenda right away. She was
several hundred pounds under weight and nervous about everything, but
she always had such a kind look in her eye, you knew it was just a
matter of time. Brenda and I did have our beginning struggles. She
didn't immediately take to having her feet picked up (beleive me, this
is a job much easier to teach a new born, than a 3 1/2 year old? And I
do recall being sailed against a wall one day for my effort. Though she
certainly did figure out lunging right away, she didn't seem to figure
out "slow" or "whoa".
 Sadly, within the first year of coming to
Cedar Lodge Brenda came in from pasture with a fat ankle. She had
strained all the major tendons and ligaments in that area and would
need 6 months to a year of rest. With no real training into her, and no
way to get our money back out of her, Chris and I had no choice but to
send Brenda up to good neighbor Karen' s for some long period R and R.
When
Brenda came home, sound and ready to work things progressed nicely. She
was quiet and kind. She didn't have a mean bone in her body,and as time
went on, it seemed that I was going to only be fighting
with Brenda about two things for most of her career. First,
Brenda was nervous. She didn't like being separated from the herd
and her work outs in the near by rings were always made harder for her
need to be with her herd. Brenda would call and call, regardless if
anyone was calling back. She hated being left in if her herd was out,
and she would get very quick in her work out when she wasn't happy.
Since she was only unhappy when she was out of the barn......that was
most the time.......Brenda was quick most the time. None the less,
we learned to work with this problem. I was not as quick to be
able to deal with Brenda's other major problem, which still haunts
her today.
 I don't know if it's because of Brenda's early
neglect and poor feeding program, or whether it has to do with Brenda's
over all nervousness, but Brenda either goes two ways when you see her
move: She drops her nose, frames up into a beautiful hunter frame and
looks like a "A" mover from a big show circuit, or she inverts her
head, puts it up in your lap somewhere, tries to run and resembles more
of a giraffe. There really is very little in between for Brenda. Along
with this problem, or maybe because of it, as Brenda's training
progressed and she started to jump, it became apparent that there was
another ugly problem that we would have to live with. Brenda's stride.
Hunter
shows all measure between fences in a line. To standardize this
practice, it was decided that an average hunter size is 16.0 hands, and
an average 16 hand hunter had a 12 foot stride, for an average hunter
size jump of 3'. Period. Many shows will start their classes at 2'6"
but usually, because of timing, the course will stand at 12' strides.
Often if the fences are less than this, the course designers will
shorten the lines to make up for the smaller fences, and there fore
shorter take off and landings. If the fences are over 3', they will
usually lengthen. Knowing this information, you can imagine what a
challenge it is to ride a short horse, or pony in the big fence
ring, or a large horse in a cross rail class. Not even taking side for
consideration, some horses, regardless of their size, do not have a
standardized stride length. They are either shorter (meaning you are
always jumping them out of a gallop, or adding strides) or longer
(meaning you are always whoaing) than the average 12 foot stride
standard. So it is with Brenda.
 Brenda
is only 15.3. She isn't
that big and she is fine bone and petite built. With all this being
said, Brenda has at LEAST a 14 foot stride, and that's if she's gong
slow. If everyone would just lengthen out their lines a couple feet,
Brenda would be content. But that was not to be. When you are showing
young horses, slower is better, and closer to a jump is better than
farther away. You can imagine how this effected poor Brenda. Brenda was
already living in two worlds, not knowing whether she was a show horse
or a gazelle, and adding the complication of me saying "whoa" to her
constantly, made her life even more challenging. Not that all of that
wasn't enough, but during her first year of showing, Brenda was
fascinated by everything outside of the ring while she was inside the
ring. I would constantly be saying, "Brenda, focus!" as we were closing
in on a first fence in a line and Brenda's head was strained to the
left looking at something (a dog, a bird, a flower) outside the ring.
Beyond her inability to focus, and certainly adding to my woes, Brenda
was not exactly a brave horse. She didn't like scary, awkward looking
fences and she HATED to touch anything she jumped. Heaven forbid if she
knock down a pole. Next time over, she would jump it twice as big.
Between the many complications of Brenda's mind, laid the reason that
for her first year of showing I left her at the very bottem level of
divisions in the Basic ring. I left her jumping cross rails and 2'0.
Not that I wasn't schooling her larger at home, but I wanted to give
her something that she could trot over, possiably knock over while she
was staring at the judge in disbeleif and still be willing to come back
and jump it in the next class. My patience paid off, and though
adjusting for Brenda's long stride and focusing problems continued to
haunt us, the next summer saw Brenda and I finish our her
pre-green year at 2'9". It wasn't a great year, but Brenda tried. I
found myself adding to my usual, "focus, Brenda." the song from the
Wizard of Oz, "If I only had a brain." None the less, at the end
of the season, Brenda knew more than she did at the beginning, and I
felt confident to let someone else try the ride on her.
 Brenda's first rider was a girl that was riding at the stable. She was moving up from Abby,
and a successful year of showing over the lower fences. Basically, she
had won all that she could in the lower ring, and needed a horse to
ride over the larger fences. We thought of Brenda. Unfortuately, the
matching didn't work as well as we had hoped. Both Brenda and Caroline
were just too inexperienced for the matching and at the end of the show
season, Brenda was once again without a rider. Looking around our barn
for another rider that might be a suitable match for Brenda the
decision was made to offer the ride to my neice, Kendra. Of my
three nieces of my brother, Kendra took to riding the latest. Allison
rode devotedly and showed through her junior years. Kali was determined
to ride from the time she could walk, but Kendra was content to dress
up Stella's (grandma's) cat, rather than getting the chance to take a
ride at the stable. For Chris and I, opening up the oppurtunity to get
a chance to ride so many horses, and then getting turned down in
preference to a cat, could be rather insulting, but we beleive that all
children must find their own paths, and Keni was in the midst of
finding hers. So it was, untill a little white pony named Merry Legs
came along. Merry Legs stold Kendra's heart, and though Sam, the
cat is still a favorite to this day, after Merry Legs, Kendra was
hooked. The jump from a 13.2 hand pony to a 15.3 hand horse with a 14
foot stride, is not necessarily an easy one, nor perhaps the best
choice to make but it was the only choice at hand and so Brenda was
offered to Kendra. Kendra jumped at the chance to move into the large
ring and bigger fences. She came out devotedly all fall and spring to
ride Brenda. Again, as I had with Kali, Kendra's sister, I acted as
back up, occasionally giving a ride to Brenda and there to school her
if the pair got in over their heads. Kendra showed Brenda for 2 years.
What started out very frustratingly, ended up with consistant
performances in the Children's division and playing around with the
idea of taking Brenda jumpers. When Keni was consistantly having nice
rounds and still not placing it was obvious that it was time for Kendra
to move on to a nicer horse. She had learned and taught Brenda
everything that she could, but now the competition she was up against
was just too good for Brenda's occasional gazelle style. Once again,
Brenda was without a rider.
Chris and I tried without sucess
to use Brenda for our lessons. Brenda is the kind of horse that is
quite good when she is ridden regularly, and quite bad when she is
ridden occasionally. She is just too hot and nervous. She needs the
summer heat to slow her down. So for almost 2 years, Brenda
mostly sat doing nothing. Kendra would ride her when she was able and
we still discussed taking Brenda jumpers, but timing was always an
issue. Kendra had another show horse to keep worked and a slew of
school horses to ride. Finding time for Brenda, was just plain hard.
Half
way through the summer of 2006 Chris came to me with a problem. One of
her Basic ring riders, Taylor was without a horse. After leasing one of
our boarders horses for the season, and showing her successfully at
several Basic ring shows, the horse had been diagnosed with a
lameness that was not going to get better. Taylor needed a horse to
replace her current one and Chris was stuck.
“Find
me a horse, Amy.” Chris said. We were sitting in the middle of the camp
dining hall having lunch with 80 campers and staff. It was early
July. Easier said than done. It is difficult enough on our string
and our staff when we pull our show horses out for the summer. The idea
of pulling another one of Chris’s and my stable horses out for the
entire show season was impossible. Our stable horses were just working
too hard. There were stable horses that weren’t working, but most of
them were just too advanced for where Taylor was at with her riding.
Then I thought of Brenda. I sat silent for a few moments and pondered
what had just popped into my head. At first, the thought seemed
impossible. Brenda had little experience with less advanced horses, and
Taylor had little experience with more advanced horses, but of the
possible solutions, it seemed to have the best chance. Brenda was
sweet. She didn’t mean to be bad when she was, she just would get a
bit, well distracted. Taylor for her part, was a quiet, soft rider.
Yes, it just may work.
What about Brenda?”
I ventured. Chris made a distasteful face that looked like she had just
bitten into a piece of liver, thinking it was ice cream. Brenda was not
her favorite horse, and I could see Chris mounting her list of all the
reasons that it was a bad idea. I shrugged.
“You have two
weeks till the next horse show. Taylor doesn’t have a horse to ride.
Have her ride Brenda and see how it goes.” Chris agreed grudgingly.
 Two
weeks went by and though it wasn’t a match made in heaven, Taylor
didn’t fall off, Brenda jumped the jumps (though perhaps rather
quickly) and Chris still had hair left. It was decided that Taylor
would ride Brenda at the Huntington horse show the following weekend.
One of the selling points was that Taylor was currently showing 1’9” to
2’0. At that fence height, it was low enough that the pair could opt to
trot in and trot or canter out if things started to go out of control.
The option would keep them out of the ribbons, but we were more
interested in safety and the possibility of building a competitive
pair, than whether Brenda and Taylor won their first time out. We had a
plan. Our plan worked swimmingly, and by Saturday afternoon, Taylor and
Brenda were starting to canter entire courses. The match was a success
and Taylor committed to riding Brenda for the rest of the season.
By
season end, Taylor and Brenda had won several year end championships
and Taylor made the decision to show Brenda the following season as
well. That season was even better than the first, with Taylor chalking
up the championship in her medal division as well as several other
divisions as well. As I write this, Taylor and Brenda are practicing to
change over from the Basic ring to the Regular ring. Taylor has just
purchased a horse of her own, but will be showing Brenda for another
season as “Pride” learns to grow up a bit.
And after that?
What will Brenda do when Taylor moves on? I am sure with her new found
successes we won’t have any problem finding someone else to volunteer
to fill Taylor’s stirrups and give Brenda a spin. I’m sure Brenda will
be at Cedar Lodge for many years to come.
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