Leg On.

If there is one thing horses teach, its perseverance.    They teach that through perseverance an average rider can become a top trainer.  They’ve proven that, through perseverance, a spooky off-the-track mare can gallop around cross-country without missing a step.  Horses have a knack at persuading their humans to drag out of bed at four in the morning to feed and change blankets in the sub-zero temperatures with the sole reward being a whicker or two.  And horses teach us that, no matter what, leg on.

I remember when my first pony decided we should go swimming.  Completely against my will, I ended up in the middle of the pond still atop the pony.  Nothing to do but leg on.  When he'd put his head between his legs to eat grass I'd hear "Leg On" from multiple on-lookers.  I guess it stuck because when we sold him, I sat down behind the asparagus patch and cried as the trailer pulled away.  But, I knew he was going to a good home, so I got back up and found a new horse to leg on.

She was an Arab mare prone to refusals and jigging down the trail.  Leg on.  It took miles and miles of teethe gritting jigging and refusal after refusal, but we became a team that could go anywhere and do anything.  Hunters, Jumpers, Games, Polocrosse, Competitive Trail, Driving, Foxhunting.  There were times I hit the ground and times I wanted to get off and walk home, but instead it was always leg on.  Fittingly, when I lost her suddenly to a lightning strike, the condolences all reminded me while it hurt like crazy, it wasn't the end.  Leg on. 

I was lucky enough to have another mane to cry into.  Another horse to devote my time to.  Another partnership to form.  She tried my patience, but she also taught me to laugh.  You can only gallop backwards around the arena so long before it becomes comical, so laugh a little and leg on.  I literally had to drag her, on foot, into her first water jump, but she never batted an eye at water after that.  In fact, she had a perfect cross country record.  Sometimes, the greater the battle, the sweeter the victory.  Yee-haw and leg-on.  Several years into our partnership, she developed an extremely aggressive cancer and was gone a little over a year after that.  I had time to say good-bye, time to find yet another partner, time to convince my legs to leg on.

If you study horse people, you’ll find they are a group of people who simply don’t give-up (to a fault sometimes).  They’ll mortgage the house to pay the vet bill.  They’ll enter that big show, knowing the chances of winning are one in one hundred.  They’ll carve six hours out of their day to feed their old horse with no teeth or to soak the leg with just a little swelling.  They’ll hand walk a horse recovering from an injury for twenty minutes every day for weeks on end.  They’ll dash into a burning barn to save one last horse.  Horse people are crazy persevere.

Eventing lost six amazing horses this past week in a barn fire.  It has devastated the eventing community, but none of us gave up and sold our horses.  We went out and had a good jump school.  We took a nice hack through the woods.  We gave them a big pat, a couple of extra cookies, and cried in their manes.  Then we figured out what we could do to help those directly affected by the True Prospect fire because that’s what eventers do.  We leg on.

Sticky spot to the trakehner?  Leg on.  Chip into a combination?  Leg on.  Green moment at the ditch?  Chin-up, leg on.  Less that stellar show?  Leg on.  Unfair judging?  Leg on.

Through life’s greatest hardships…Leg on.