Standout Saturday

When I started this blog I had the idea that on Saturdays, at least for a while, I would do a feature post for horses that I have ridden/worked with that have been particularly special.  They aren't going to be in any particular order.

This week's standout, because before Leo happened she was my main squeeze, is Izzy.

Izzy (JC name Nistelrooy Image; Show name Royal Image) is a 2006 OTTB.  She was the third or fourth horse that I rode when I started lessons at CEC (my current barn), and it was a complete disaster.  For better or for worse, I grew up riding horses at a lesson barn where they may have done multiple lessons a day.  Hot was not a part of the vocabulary used to describe them.  And while I have ridden somewhat more 'alive' horses since my early days, I had never attempted to ride a horse like Izzy.  She was coming off an injury and although she's been off track for 4 or so years, she acted like she'd come off the track the day before my lesson.  I was Not Prepared. I had just gotten back into riding after a 3 year hiatus, and Izzy was A Challenge that I was not ready to face.  We didn't jump.  We mostly walked in circles and tried not to run into standards/my trainer/other riders.  It was a mess.

Flash forward three months, with weekly lessons and a show or two under my belt.  Izzy had been out of the lesson program for a while, and was back in lessons for One Month Only.  She was my white whale.  I needed vindication.  I asked my trainer to put me on her in a private lesson.  I was mildly terrified.  And I survived.  

We didn't rock that first lesson.  A huge part of it was just my trainer saying over and over again that I needed to relax.  But we did jump things, and we didn't have any overly stupid moments.  And I was hooked.  I wanted to go again.  And again.  And then a month was almost over and I was realizing that as challenging as it was, riding this mare - so different from any horse I had ever ridden before in my life - was doing incredible things for my riding abilities and confidence issues and all of that jazz.  So I talked to my trainer and talked to parent of the girl who was half leasing the mare, and in March I started half leasing Izzy.

In the three months that I leased this mare, I learned so many things.  I learned how to handle a hot horse. I learned how to handle an exceptionally anxious horse that would get stuck in her own head and forget how to horse.  I learned how to be a more confident rider.  I learned how fragile OTTBs can be.  I learned courage.  I learned how to keep riding even when I was hot and frustrated and really just wanting to quit.  We never went to any shows.  There are no videos of me riding this mare that I know of.  But we improved by miles in the time that we spent together.  

Like so many OTTBs, Izzy is exceptionally accident prone.  The last month of my lease with her involved very little riding as she recovered from a pasture accident that left her lame most days.  During this time, the vet also identified joint changes, likely due to arthritis, in the stifles and hocks, causing intermittent hind-end lameness.  We started a rehab program.  Several weeks of recovery turned to several months.  I gave thirty days notice that I would no longer half lease her after June and it was a hard choice to make but the struggle of paying quite a lot of money to care for a horse that was basically unrideable due to injury was hard to justify.  I started looking for a horse of my own.  And then the lameness specialist came out, intending to do injections, and we got into a discussion about Izzy's biggest problem - her narcolepsy.

Izzy was narcoleptic before I ever started riding her, but around January it went from occasional and intermittent to regular and almost every day.  She falls asleep in crossties while you groom her.  She falls asleep between saddling and bridling her.  She falls asleep when you lead her on occasion.  She falls asleep when sedated.  And one day in June while the vet was out watching, she fell asleep while I was riding her.  The lameness specialist informed us that unlike with humans, narcolepsy in horses is progressive.  That it eventually gets to the point where the horse becomes a danger to itself and to others - that horses can be euthanized because it gets so bad that they can't leave their stalls or be led anywhere because they become such huge fall risks.  That someday, Izzy could fall asleep not only while standing still with a rider, but while jumping with a rider.

Hopefully, those days are far away.  But this beautiful mare was officially retired last week.  It was heartbreaking, but she will live out the rest of her days as a pasture pet, getting fat and staying happy.  I will never forget her, and I will never be any less grateful for the time that I got to spend with her and the things that she taught me.  She will always have a special place in my heart.  And apparently I haven't processed any of this fully yet, because writing this post has me tearing up like crazy.  So I'm going to end this here.