It’s been a while since I’ve updated everyone as to how Lucky is doing. I was a little discouraged this past year, starting in June, when I still didn’t have a ridable horse to show. “When or will I ever have a horse I can ride in a show arena!” I was moaning in my mind. I had been at the Missouri Fox Trotter Spring Show cheering on the Vaughts with Nova, Powder and Tony. I was at the Super Horse Show the next weekend and temptation overcame me. I made a too-high-for-my-budget offer on an amazing horse. The three year old horse had already placed 12th in the Futurity at the Spring Show. The horse was winning junior classes at this show. Nichole and Jenny agreed that he was a wonderful horse. Thankfully, my offer was rejected for being too low. Plus, the owner had not yet decided to sell the horse.
At various times during the hot summer days, I looked at some of the big Horse Classified web sites. There were tempting Fox Trotter horses that could possibly be in my price range.
Meanwhile time passed and I was riding Lucky Star every day at a new wonderful boarding stable. I like to ride there and presto, I ride. Lucky Star started improving! He started moving for a quarter or half of the arena before he would screech to an unasked halt and argue about moving. Say, this is the life! Plus, I could get him to stop arguing much sooner and off we went again.
I got an email from the owner of the amazing horse and told that my offer would be accepted. The horse is now for sale. Filled with hope for Lucky Star’s progress, I turned down the offer to buy the amazing horse. If I got the amazing horse, I would be poor and have to sell Lucky Star. I checked out my emotional state. My emotion said, “You can’t sell Lucky Star! Are you crazy? You love working with challenges. Lucky Star makes you feel confident. Lucky Star can be your riding partner for many a year as you get older and older!”
The end of 2013 has come and Lucky Star has gotten better and better with everything, even the canter. He argues less with me about impulsion into the canter. When he does get into the canter, his legs get disrupted and we go into that four legged gait where none of the legs understand the concept of rhythm. But, just last week, we cantered a full lap both ways of the fabulous indoor arena where we are spending our winter riding time. That was worthy of a SCREAM of JOY!
The two gaits that Missouri Fox Trotters are known for is the flat foot walk and the fox trot. Lucky does those two gaits wonderfully. There are many horse shows in the Kansas City area with classes for fox trotters…and only include those two gaits. Lucky Star will be a show horse in 2014. We are practicing those gaits to get consistent as well as trying for longer and longer times at the canter. If we ever get the canter, we can do the Versatility classes at the National Missouri Fox Trotter shows. If we ever get the canter and drop-to-trot lead changes, I can do my favorite class, the reining class. I love reining class.
This late Fall, Lucky Star improved so much that he got fun to ride! Thank goodness I didn’t buy the perfect horse. Getting Lucky Star to be the perfect horse is going to take me a little while and I’ll have a lot of fun while headed for “Lucky Star perfection”! yee haw!