The Project...

I thought about it a lot...deciding what to write about tonight....and to be honest, I wasn't 100% sure until I sat down literally 17 seconds ago.

I could have written about Rolex - and the absolutely incredible experience it was - but, I will save that for another day...probably tomorrow. 

When you go through rough times in life, it really is the support crew that you choose to surround yourself with that will either make or break you.  Be your rock when you are going through your hard place.  Enter BO.  BO suggested I needed something to take my mind off of all the other shitty stuff going on in my life and said she had something in mind.

BO mentioned a project she had which she wanted me to manage.  Said project is a four legged, shaggy looking, qh/tb cross (with something else in there, we are just not sure what), who knows....nothing.  Wait, I will say 'knows the basics' (meaning if you squeeze hard enough she will trot and if you haul on the reins enough, she will stop)....and she can jump the moon.

Enter Flicka.

Flicka, who I refuse to call Flicka and will call Flick from now on, is a super cutie patootie of a mare with a sweetheart of a personality to go along with her...all 15.1 / 15.2 hands of her.

Not much is known about Flick - the lady who BO bought her from used her mainly for trail riding, parades (poor Flick) and well, that was the most of it.  She is currently being used once a week, as a school pony for the lesson program at the barn.

BO sees something in her and asked me yesterday if I would like to ride her and treat her as my own for the next several months as Chester is enjoying time behind bars.  Well...sure, I guess! 

To be brutally honest, I had to ask the Coach which one she was...I wouldn't have been able to pick her out of a crowd if I tried.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw her!! She is cute, more long then she is tall, short little legs, a super gentle eye and well...a head that doesn't really belong with the rest of her body.  I looked at her in the field, she looked at me and instantly started walking towards me.  What a cutie.

Flicka: Before

I rode her today - for the first time.  She doesn't know how to bend, when she gets nervous, she sticks her head straight up in the air and trots faster and faster and faster and..., she has no brakes, she has no knowledge how her front end and her back end are supposed to work together, she needs 30 cm spurs (because I found out pretty quickly she HATED my dressage whip), and really just knows...how to get by. 

But - she has heart, she has the desire to please, she wants to try, and she tries hard, she wants to not get freaked out when people ride her (by the end of my ride, I had a nice slow trot with a stretched out neck) AND, she is a super super sweet and kind mare.  That was enough to win me over.  And I can't wait to ride her again tomorrow. (Yes, Chester is extremely jealous.)

I think I will call her the Distraction, more then I will the Project.  Either way, I have her to work with and learn from...My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to teach Flick...well, everything that I know (which isn't much, I assure you), make her into a more rideable horse and yes, you heard it here...event her by the end of July.

Flicka: Before the Makeover