Mattie (Show name Partly Cloudy)

Waylan is my favorite horse auction. Not only does it have a farmy, personal air, and not only do you rarely get meat buyers, but it's close. I can get there in an hour and in my business, that's a big plus. Sadly, over the years Waylan Horse auction has fallen out of favor, and where I could often expect 40-50 horses at a sale, often now I can expect 5-8. Hardly worth my time. Still, now and then I will give it a try. The year in question, Waylan had advertised a two day sale; registered horses on Friday night, non registered saddle horses on Saturday. That was too tempting. I decided to go to both.

Friday night there were few horses sold, and surprise to me, I ended up buying one regardless of the fact that it was a registered sale, and the horse should have been more expensive. It was on this night that I ended up buying a yearling colt that would someday would be named Spot. The funny thing was, that even though he sold at the registered sale, he didn't come with papers. Never did figure that one out.

That Friday night there were several horses there for the Saturday morning sale, so in my spare time, I mosied through the pens lined with sale horses, tied to the walls. A biggish mare caught my eye. She looked quarter type, reasonably big, young and gray. She was attractive and since she was saddled, I guessed that she was broke.. Since I was already scheduled to come back with a horse trailer to pick up Spot, I made a mental note to look for the gray mare the next day at the sale.

There was nothing special about winning Mattie at sale. I was bidding against several other bidders, so she didn't go real cheap, but she was still a good price. I came home with little information. She was a registered appendix quarter horse, 4 years old, 16.0 hands, and had come from Montana just for the sale. Evidently, the owner had hauled in a group of horses for sale. She appeared to be green broke. Mattie came home, went through isolation and went in to work. I liked Mattie from the start. It was obvious from the beginning, though she was indeed green broke, her ground manners were not something that had been attended to. Mattie would be what they called "range broke', meaning basically hanging out on the range grazing till she was saddle age, then break her and ride her on the range. Mattie didn't know much about grooming, manners, being led, blacksmiths, worming, clipping, doctoring or anything having to do with a barn. She was a fierce fighter and very opinionated. When you rode her, she could pull like a mack truck and had a reasonably mean buck. Those were all facts. But the other fact was that she was a good mover, pretty, and took to jumping almost immediately. I bought her in March and took her to her first horse show in May. I didn't show her. Just kind of hung out but I was pleased with the results.

Summer camp is a hard time to work with young horses. You have, well, camp going on and all the older horses showing. I rarely work young horses through the summer. It's just too hard to be consistent, so I sent Mattie up the road to good neighbor's Karen for the summer, with a promise to start up with her first thing in September. September came, and I kept my promise. I started up with Mattie first thing. She came along well, and though there remained ground manner issues, it was clear that she was a talented jumper. I had no plans on selling Mattie. I planned on keeping her for at least a couple of years at minimum. I thought I would bring her along as I did all the young horses; Show her a couple of years, and then hand her down to capable riders in the stable. So, when a local trainer, and friend asked if I had any young horses for sale, I didn't think immediately of Mattie. I listed a few that I was working and then I said, "Well I do have this other mare, but she's very green. I think greener than what you're looking for." He was interested. "I'll come by next week," Bob said. "And I'm bringing a trailer." Bob did come back the next week, and though he tried several horses that day, Mattie was the one that caught his eye and Mattie was the one he loaded into his trailer before he left. Bob took Mattie for a 2 week trial, and by the end of that time, his client made an offer to buy Mattie. The offer was a generous one, as usual there were bills to pay and so, even though I had had no intention of selling Mattie this early, Chris and I said "yes."

I saw Mattie often over the next several years. She showed on the local circuit with several riders from Bob's stable and usually did well, but Mattie never seemed to find her niche, either at Bob's stable or with any rider. She had established a reputation at Bob's stable as being difficult to deal with at the barn. She became a difficult loader and her showing was hit or miss. There was a story that I was told about her jumping out of a four foot round pen at a stable, and more than once I assisted Bob loading her to go home. With this information, it was not too big of a surprise when Mattie's owner, Barb put her up for sale. And though Mattie was a very good mover and jumper, a year later she was still for sale. One day at a horse show in late August, Barb approached me. "I would like you to take Mattie home with you." she said.

"

Barb, I'm not a sale barn. I don't have anyone looking to buy horses. I don't think we could do you justice." I objected.

"That's ok. Just take her home and use her. No one is riding her at Bob's. Take her home to see if you can find a place for her. If someone is looking to buy a horse, show them Mattie."

I called Chris with Barb's offer. It was going into fall, not usually the time we decide to take on new horses, but we said "yes" to Mattie.

Mattie's first year back was an interesting one. I rode her for several months and Mattie was to say the least, difficult. She was strong, a runaway and heavy. She was rude and grumpy in the barn. She would just as soon run over the top of you than move around you. Slowly, with constant work, different bits, lots of flat work, lots of turn out and time, Mattie started to change. As that change started to happen I encouraged my niece, Kali to try out Mattie. Kali didn't have a show horse for the next season. It was fall and Kali would have all year to work with Mattie and get better. When Kali wasn't riding Mattie, I agreed to ride her to keep her going and always be there as back up if Mattie was bad. Kali agreed. Mattie was a big step up from the school horses that Kali usually got stuck with.

To say the least, it was not a match made in heaven from day one. Kali was still a novice and Mattie was difficult. There were many times, I'm sure in that first year that Kali would have just as soon handed me the reins and walked away, especially when she was brushing off her pants from being dumped! But yet, she persisted. Kali rode Mattie for two years. They traveled extensively on the LMHJA local circuit and then onto some faraway "A" shows. Though Mattie was still a bit hit and miss, she was competitive in any company and as time went on, she became more consistent.

It was apparent that Mattie had grown on Kali. Overtime, Mattie had grown on all of us. When Kali was ready to take a break, Mattie went into the show team for some of the better Cedar Lodge riders, and over the last several years she has provided quite a few riders the opportunity to ride with Cedar Lodge.

Mattie isn't easy, and I don't believe she ever will be. Our blacksmith, who shod her at her previous stable and shoes her still, says she's a different horse since she came back to Cedar Lodge, but she still has her opinions. None the less, Mattie is talented and if you figure out how to ride her, you usually do very, very well. Chris says the riders that do well with Mattie are the ones that make friends with Mattie. The ones that spend the extra time, give her the extra groom, graze her on the lawn, scratch her behind the ears. It could be true. Kali did all those things with Mattie and just look what Mattie did for her!.

CEDAR LODGE

Mattie (Show name Partly Cloudy)