History Repeating

When I was 13 we sold my chestnut gelding, Charger, and when it was time to buy a new horse I narrowed my search down to two candidates: a more experienced gray gelding, who was a ton of fun to ride, and a young bay gelding who was bigger, much less experienced, but a sweetheart. They both had their good and bad points and eventually, we ended up buying the bay. I had a lot of fun with Stevie - he was a great horse - but he was the wrong choice.

He was too young, too strong, and too difficult. I have wished a hundred times over that I chose the older gray that I had more fun riding, because I think it really would have changed my riding. I would have ridden more in high school and been better - instead I spent all of my time focusing on trying to make a big jumper horse be a hunter, which is not where he was meant to be. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of tears - and in the end, not really worth it at all.

I only mention this now because it occurred to me this morning that I could soon be facing a similar decision. This weekend I am going to visit a well-trained gray mare who has a lot of show experience, and in two weeks I am going to Florida to visit a young bay gelding. It's far from the same situation - both horses are bred to be in the hunter world, and there's a good chance that I'll end up with neither of them. Still, the similarities were striking - I had been up a lot of last night debating whether I wanted something green or something made, something that would be a project or something that would be fun. It's a tough decision - and I'm not sure which way I'd go this time, even with my last experience.

By the way - this is Stevie. :)