We are in the market for a new horse – a new horse for a just-turned-8-year-old girl. An outsider, one somewhat unfamiliar with our world, might believe that this horse is her first horse, her beginner horse, you might say. If one believes that, one would be wrong. This would-be horse is her third horse. Her first horse was Flash, an ancient Shetland who, unlike most ponies, had neither a tooth nor a bad bone in his body. By the time she was 4-and-a-half years old and confident astride ol’ Flashy, she was experimenting on Bud. Bud is a grade gelding who was sold off the ranch because he was too lazy and (let’s be honest) too slow for the daily grind of ranch work. He has enough cow sense to work on a place like ours and enough good sense to take care of a beginner barrel racer.
After the end of the last junior rodeo season, Craig mentioned looking for a new horse for Clara. Though she and Bud had just come off a second-place finish in the peewee division at the Caldwell Night Rodeo, Bud seemed fundamentally unable to break 20 seconds on a standard barrel pattern. However, rodeo horse shopping for us comes with some caveats. We are not a rodeo family in the truest sense of the word. I never competed, Craig never competed, we don’t have an LQ trailer, and we are unwilling to take out a second mortgage to finance a finished barrel horse. Any new horse for Clara would be well south of five figures, ensuring the words “green” or “mature” are mentioned in the listing.
Even after the conversation, I spent the winter unconvinced that a new horse was necessary. The duo may not get any faster, but Clara could and should work on her fundamentals. There would be lots of time yet for winning rodeos, I argued. We had not made any definite decisions, and then Bud decided to get himself tangled up in a bit of stray barbwire. He is healing up, but there are no rodeos in his future until at least July. The horse shopping has begun in earnest.
So far, Clara and Craig have tested out three options. One of them, “Kali,” they have ridden twice, and she is starting to move ahead of her competition. There are two more “viewings” scheduled for this weekend, and I urge caution. There is no need to hurry. And yet, in Clara’s mind, the nice weather and their sister’s junior high rodeo next weekend say otherwise. When the father-daughter first visited Kali, Craig introduced himself and Clara to the current owner, saying that the horse was for Clara. The owner politely mentioned that Kali might be a lot of horse for a little girl like Clara. Craig rode Kali first and quickly determined that, if anything, Kali might not be enough horse for Clara.
Fifteen years ago, I would have never imagined the time, effort and money I would put into horses for two burgeoning cowgirls. We’ve always taken the perspective that we want our girls to be all-around good equestrians, not just winning barrel racers. Right now, for my older daughter at least, there are more down barrels than clean runs, but despite those disappointments – on their horses – they are confident and capable, they are strong, and they are resilient at a time in their young lives where the world is set on bringing them down. It’s hard to put a limiting price tag on that.
