It's been a little over a month since I lost my great Holly mare. If you're a follower of my blog, you know from my last post just how special this mare was to me. I had so many plans through the years with her and lastly I had so many plans of her foals for the future. It wasn't meant to be. I have dealt with the sorrow and the despair of this loss til it was about to break me. It took me time to be able to saddle up a horse. It took me time to saddle up her only foal I own, Honey and not break down in sobs. I wasn't in the mindset to better me or my horses. I was no where where I needed to be to accomplish anything.
After a couple weeks, I realized just how important it was to just finish off what we started...Honey. Not just Honey though, but all my colts. Just as Holly deserved someone to help her reach her full potential, so do these colts. I have so many hopes and dreams for these colts that I can't sit around and wallow in my tears and pain. Instead, I think of all that I learned in my time together with Holly and put towards these colts.
I hope that by riding Holly that it will help make the learning curve with Honey be that much easier, which I already know this is true. Case in point, since it's icy out, I've been spending most of my riding time at the indoor arena. I'm not a huge fan of working my colts on barrels in this particular arena due to only being 80 ft wide. So I work a lot of one barrel drills to help them get better in their turns without running into a wall. I was having a hard time getting Honey to feel the way I wanted her to around the barrel. She'd turn it just fine but she just didn't "feel" right and how I knew she could. Then I remembered how I'd ride Holly...with just a little outside leg pressure, that colt went to feeling like she would have to take five strides to make it around a barrel to three. She flowed and kept her forward momentum. She felt like her momma. With that a smile came across my face as I remembered that sweet little mare.
I shared a lot of dreams with that mare but now, I shall get to share them with her foal, Honey and all the other colts that I am blessed to ride. She gave me so much through out the years and I have the feeling that with every ride that I make, I'll realize just how much she gave me. I won't sit and dwell on what could have been. I will get up and work to see what will be; because of her, I'm one step closer to making it.
