So far, we’ve just talked about the horses I’ve bought and then sold over the past five or six years. We haven’t yet talked about the horses I’ve kept and why. As of this writing, I’ve got four horses in my pasture and only one of those seems like he’s a permanent member of the herd. Two others are working on it, and one is a sale project. I’ll tell you here about the one that seems like he’s going to stay.

I am not an “average” horse owner. Absolutely. I am looking for a business partner, traveling companion, artistic muse and friend. I need an equal partner who can contribute to my horsemanship and my livelihood in a real and measureable way. And I want to contribute to my horse’s security and happiness in whatever way I can, based on who I am and where I am in my horsemanship.

Cruz is a 16.1 hand Thoroughbred gelding who, from what I can tell, raced three times in the Chicago area. After his short racing career, he ended up in Washington State where he was reportedly trail ridden in the Cascade Mountains. He was then sold into a sport horse home, where he didn’t work out very well. He arrived at the farm in South Carolina in October of 2008. I had heard about him via e-mail through a student. She had come into contact with him and thought he and I might get along. He is the last horse that I still own that I bought sight unseen. When he came in, I didn’t have any sort of idea whether he’d stay or go or even be fixable.

Cruz was not terribly happy or healthy when he arrived at the farm. He was thin and weak from his trip across the country. His pelvis was stuck, his back was sore and we suspected he had ulcers. Though I had hoped to work with him that first winter, instead I spent the winter in veterinary appointments, holding him for the chiropractor and watching him eat hay with some calm friends out in the pasture. He was diagnosed with ulcers and underwent a 28-day prescription treatment regimen. After three or four months of rest and recovery, I brought him in a few times and did some ground work with him and rode him a few times. By spring we did not know each other well enough for me to consider taking him on the road, so he remained at home where he sat in the pasture for the balance of that year.

When I arrived home in the fall of 2009, I began working with a sleek, round and much happier Cruz. We reviewed more ground work, checked out his tying, his feet and his rope work. My working student rode him, I rode him and a student rode him. I began working on jumping him and our early efforts were a disaster. Cruz didn’t seem to care if he landed on, in or straddling a jump, and we broke many plastic jump cups. His saving grace (and what earned him his next year) was that he was and is an absolutely fantastic trail horse. I could ride him out in the woods by myself and get lost out there and he’d never so much as flick an ear back towards home. So we spent a lot of time out there doing that and finding the occasional log to jump just to satisfy me.

I did take Cruz on the road in the spring of 2010, where he was mostly useless. I had not yet figured out that he gets pretty attached to mares, and since I seem to always have a mare in the herd, he was constantly herdbound, distracted and tight. He would scream and holler all day and was impossible to clinic with because he was so worried. He couldn’t keep any weight on, and when I had a guest farrier shoe him, he came up sore. I was able to use him just a little at the last clinic of that trip, but by the time I got home, I had vowed never to take him on the road again.

He sat in the pasture again until fall 2010, when I brought him back in and did our trail riding/trying to jump routine. My friend Sara began her saddle fitter certification course, and we used Cruz as a case study for her class. This was the beginning of the next part of Cruz’s new life. After many, many fittings and much experimentation, we had a jumping saddle that fit both me and Cruz. During that process, I learned that Cruz has very high, long withers with wide spinus processes. It was the length of his withers (through T12) that was causing us so many saddle fitting issues and constant chiropractic needs. Once we sorted this out, Sara encouraged me to try the jumping work again, and by mid-winter we were hitting the occasional hunter/jumper show and winning.

Next, we separated Cruz from any mares and put him in a pasture of bachelor geldings. All his herdbound behavior evaporated and his emotional state absolutely leveled out to the point that he easily became one of the quietest horses on the farm, which is saying something.

In 2011, Cruz went on the road in the #1 Saddle Horse slot and performed that job with grace and skill. He traveled well, he kept his weight on, and did everything asked of him. I felt I’d found, accidentally really, that muse/partner/business associate I’d been looking for. Cruz has become a good friend and I think he enjoys being around me as much as I enjoy being around him. So we’re a lot like an arranged marriage that worked out.

Why has Cruz worked out? I think there are several reasons. I had no preconceived notions when he arrived about what he “should” be or what he “should” accomplish. He had no expectations NOT to live up to. He had a lot of room to just become who he is.

I think it also helped that in his case, things went really slow between us. He had a year in the pasture first off to just get better mentally and physically. If I’d have tried to work with him before he was of sound mind and body, we would have failed.

I let Cruz pick his job. I was willing to sell Cruz for the first two and a half years of our time together if he’d have been better off that way. I was willing for him to quit his job here at any point. But he kept picking up jobs, one by one. Riding horse for me, trail horse, school horse, babysitter, clinic horse, show horse, foxhunter…. Now the challenge becomes how to use him without using him UP.

I don’t know the precise moment when I knew Cruz would stay. I’m not in love with him, but I think I am in “like” with him for sure. He’s showing me what it’s like to have a horse reach for me when I walk up with a halter (not a treat!). It feels like I’ve got a willing partner at last. I am learning a lot from him. He’s a lot about what we DON’T do, and that’s a lesson in and of itself. There was no “magic” involved in helping Cruz become himself. We gave him time to sort himself out and then gave him a job to do.

It’s hard for me to explain my relationship with my own horses because while they are livestock to me on the one hand and I make my living with them and through them, there is a spiritual and emotional connection between us that transcends the everyday nuts and bolts of living life working horses. It’s a precious enough thing to me right now that I don’t talk about it much. Maybe when I find a way to talk about it where it doesn’t sound too hard and edgey and it doesn’t sound too much like cut-rate amateur pop-psych, I’ll have something more to say about it. Until then I’ll mostly keep mum.