Sapphire had a baby!!

The great Sapphire and Topaz, her new foal. 

My daughter greeted me with this news the other morning as soon as I wandered into the kitchen.  As I'd just left my bed and was woefully undercaffeinated her comment made absolutely no sense to me.

"Huh?" was my witty rejoinder.  "What are you talking about?" 

At least, that's what I think I said.  Sophie says what she heard come out of my mouth was more like "Mwahnahschoogenfeld."

"Mom! Sapphire had her foooooooo-aaaaalllllll!"

At this point Sophie gave up, grabbed my hand, and dragged me to the basement family room where she has her Breyer horses set up in what I call Happy Valley Hillbilly Ranch. I say hillbilly as, since we refuse to buy another gi-normous Breyer barn, the child has gotten resourceful and created barns out of whatever is at hand.  As of today's writing, most of the ranch's residents reside in old wine boxes. Not Sapphire, though. She resides in the Breyer barn.  Rank has its privileges and all. But I digress.

The Great One's stall.  With nameplate, of course.

There she was, in the north field, the Magnificent Mare herself and her brand new baby.  I had no idea the mare was even expecting and had a tense moment as I contemplated lack of pre-natal care, however both mother and baby looked quite healthy.  Sapphire was already cantering about her field -- concerned about getting her pre-baby figure back, perhaps? 

"Did you let McLain know?" I asked. For some reason this was all my sleep-addled brain could come up with. You can't see in the picture, but Sophie's Sapphire is autographed by McLain.  If you've been reading AWIP for a while, you'll know I blog for Horse Junkies United as well.  I covered the Devon Horse Show and Country Fair for HJU and, during a embarrassing moment of weakness, ran across  the schooling ring and pretty much tackled the poor man in hopes of getting him to sign my daughter's Breyer model of Sapphire. McLain, ever gracious as he is, signed the model for me and then told me to tell Sophie to "take good care of her."

McLain and me, taken seconds before he called security. 
Just kidding!!

McLain has no idea what he started.  He's created a monster, really, as Sophie has taken his words as gospel.  Sapphire is on a regular grooming and exercise schedule.  All Sophie's horses have a set turn out schedule, however, Sapphire gets the best "field" and is out mostly at night since Sophie feels the bugs annoy her.  Inevitably, once bedtime is announced I'm told, "I need to turn Sapphire out!"  Now, I'm well aware this is a delay tactic of the highest order, but I indulge it because, well, it's Sapphire. 

Sophie takes good care of Sara (Sapphire's barn name) in other respects as well.  It's well known that Sara loves her Dunkin' Donuts.  Sadly, we don't get to the double D's as often as the big mare would like, but I do bake often. Sara's learned to love chocolate chip cookies, espresso chip cookies, and dark chocolate Kahlua brownies. (Crap! Chocolate is no good for pregant women!  What about preganant mares?) Sophie takes care to feed her only small amounts of these indulgences, though. (I know, as I vacuum up the crumbs.)

We decided to err on the side of caution and removed her brother's Lego Millenium Falcon and Sith Infiltrator out of the back of their field, as from what I understand foals are like children and thus highly accident prone.  Neither of us know anything about caring for or raising foals, so Sophie has pulled out all of her horse books and is reading up on the subject.  She says you always have to do right by your horse, but it's especially important when the horse in question belongs to one of the best riders in the world and he has specifically told you to take good care of her. 

She gets no arguments from me on that point.

Thanks for reading!

Perspective...

According to Dictionary.com, the word lucky is defined as:

lucky   pronounced 'luhk-ee";  adjective


1. having or marked by good luck; fortunate: That was my lucky day.


2. happening fortunately: a lucky accident.

When I got home late last night after a business trip, I found this on the counter.  I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that when Sophie's teacher asked the students to describe why they felt they were lucky, she wasn't expecting this kind of a response:

I'm feeling pretty lucky for a number of reasons, one of which is that I have pretty neat kids.

Sometimes the Best Horse Shows Are the Worst Ones...

OK, I know what you're asking.  "Have you been hitting the vino again, Amy?"  The answer to that would be NO, although I might contemplate having a glass at some point.

Yesterday was the Pony Jockey's first horse show of the season, the Four Seasons show at Duncraven Stables in Titusville, NJ.  We spent Saturday primping and polishing the pony, making a last minute run to Dover (how is it possible for a child to grow so quickly and to lose so dang many gloves??) and then on Sunday morning we got up at o' dark hundred to make the hour-long drive to the show.  Luckily the impending rain was holding off, so we considered that a good sign. 

Silly us.  Cookie, normally the most reliable of ponies, a pony who considers herself a Very Important Horse Show Pony, was apparently not in the mood to horse show yesterday.  She's entitled to not be in the mood.  We all get that way sometimes. 

Here's what happened: We were entered in Pre-Children's Hunter and Equitation: My trainer had Soph and Cookie school for only a little while as the footing in the schooling ring wasn't optimal. Since Cookie is older and had broken her splint bone, my trainer likes be conservative and save her legs for the classes.  No arguments there.  The footing in the outdoor ring was a bit sticky from some earlier rain, and my trainer told Sophie she'd need to ride with some real impulsion to help Cookie get over the fences.  Soph rode in, and promptly forgot her instructions. They got to fence number 2, an oxer with yellow flowers, and the pony, realizing her pilot was asleep at the wheel,  said, "No, thank you very much" and ducked out left.  She did that twice more and they retired.  The good news was the child didn't seem upset or mad at the pony -- which made me quite happy.

Re-evaluating the strategy

So, for round 2, our trainer instructed Sophie to ride up more, add more inside leg, and use an opening outside rein to hold Cookie on the right track.  Well, Cookie is not usually a stopper, but she's also no dope, and by now she'd decided that she saw herself a quick way back to the trailer and her hay.  Three drive-bys past the same oxer out they went, Exit Stage Left. Off went pony, child and trainer to the schooling ring.  Luckily the child was still fine about the whole thing, no anger at the pony, no tears.  Just  an "Okay, we have a problem to fix" kind of attitude.   I was trying to take notes, as I'm not sure I'd have been as composed..

By now I'm a bit worried that there's something wrong with the pony.  My mare is not a stopper, but if she does, it's usually a sign that something hurts.  So while they schooled I prayed to the Horse Show gods that the pony wasn't hurting somewhere.  I'm a natural worrier, so I was envisioning catastrophic breakdowns, MRIs, career ending injuries.  My husband took one look at me and told me to stop, that the pony was just testing Soph. (Not inconcievable, as Cookie's a very smart pony and does not see why she should be doing all the work if her pilot is daydreaming away up there.)

It seems Cookie was not in pain, just in a mood.  My trainer suggested menopause, as Cookie is 16 now.  No matter, because for round 3 Soph clearly had her head in the game and rode like her life depended on it.  That pony not only had pace, she was going around that ring like her tail was on fire!  As they approached the bogey fence, Soph held her inside leg on the pony like an iron rail and held a wide opening outside rein, and about 4 strides from the fence she went to the stick like a jockey coming down to the wire on Derby day.  Needless to say Cookie said a firm "Yes, Ma'am" and cleared that fence like she'd never even thought of going by it.

Finally! Over the bogey fence.

Needless to say the pony knew we were on to her tricks and had found herself an engine, and it was in full gear. The next couple rounds were a bit brisk, to say the least, and gave Soph a few real good opportunities to "cowgirl up"  and learn to stick the long ones.  God love her, she came out of the ring with a huge grin on her face, patting her pony for a job well done.  'Did you see how fast we were going that time?" she asked.  Last I checked, neither Hunter or Eq rounds were judged on speed, but so what, the kid and the pony were now having fun, and that's what matters.

So in terms of ribbons won, it was not the best of days (although we did get a few ribbons). In terms of lessons learned, though, it was definitely a banner experience.  A year or two ago a day like that would have sent the child fetal.  Now she grins through it and tells her pony she's a good girl.  She learned to gut out a difficult round, make the best out of some lousy spots and get over them and move on to the next fence.  She learned she could stick with a pony that was being less than perfect, and if that isn't a confidence builder, I don't know what is.  Most importantly, to my way of thinking, she clearly showed that the ribbon was not what mattered, rather it was the time spent with one's pony and the experience of learning together that was.

Way to go, kiddo.  Momma's proud of you.

The humans are happy, but Cookie's
still wondering where her hay is.

Sometimes You Just Need to Hug Your Pony...



Sophie drew this at school today. 
Said she needed her pony with her.

 It's been one of those weeks, and I was talking myself into skipping the barn on this rainy, foggy Friday night in favor of my PJs, a glass of wine and a good movie. 

That changed the second I arrived at my daughter's school to pick her up.  She came running out of the classroom, hiccuping and in tears.  As my arms encircled her in a hug she wailed, "I...j-just...w-w-wanna...see my p-pooooooony!" Seems she'd been collateral damage in an altercation between two schoolmates, the poor kiddo.  Maybe a stronger individual would have been able to remain resolute and stay home in favor of wine and PJs, but I'm a marshmallow. So we mopped her up a bit and headed home to change
and go down to the barn.

She didn't want to talk on the way down, and as soon as we arrived she jumped out of the car and ran to her pony's stall.  Minutes later I found her, sitting on an overturned muck bucket and leaning against Cookie's shoulder.  Seeing her took me back about 30 years, when I'd get off the bus and run to the barn where I took lessons to cry out the day's woes to Lazy or Andrew, the two lesson horses I rode and adored.  Those good old souls shepherded me through many a childhood tragedy or triumph, and I was so glad to see that my daughter had the same kind of support system.  Sugar, who resides in the stall next to Cookie's, was clearly concerned as well.  She had her nose out the feed hole and was nickering anxiously, wondering what was amiss with her "foal."

Talking it all out...

We didn't ride.  We just groomed the girls, clipped them, massaged them and loved on them.  We also took them into the arena and played a bit with them. Sophie and Cookie spent a good portion of the time just walking around the arena together, and when the rain stopped I could hear Sophie speaking softly to the pony.

By the time we left Sophie seemed over the events of the day, and while she wasn't her normal high energy self, she seemed at peace.  She hugged Cookie and kissed her precious little nose, and thanked her.  When Sophie headed out to the car I stayed behind a minute to thank Cookie as well.  Because as much as parents try to be everything for their kids, we can't be. 

We're so lucky to have these wonderful creatures to help us raise our kids, because sometimes the only thing that will make a hurt better is the love of a pony.