The Early Days

Farnley Merrimac at my first horse show.

The first pony I ever consistently rode was a shetland (shitland) named Phantom. Phantom was maybe 9 hands, and it was a great day of riding if I only fell off of him once or twice. Might I add, there weren’t many good days of riding. I typically fell off of him 4-5 times whenever I sat on his back. With his short necks and attitude, all he had to do was kick out, drop his shoulder, and go left and that was that. We eventually put grazing reins on him to help keep his head up and prevent him from bucking. However, he then learned to just rock back and forth against the grazing reins which I think freaked me out even more. He was a silver dapple and was as cute as a button, but he taught me really quickly that if you’re going to ride horses, you’re going to fall off — a lot.

Shockingly, I still loved riding despite how many times I hit the dirt. Thankfully, along with Phantom we had a much safer and nicer horse named Shady. She was much bigger, but we could really do anything with her and she would tolerate it. She was ancient, but worth her weight in gold. In fact, I only remember falling off of Shady once. That was when my sister and I  had the brilliant idea that we would ride her double out through the peach orchard and through the woods. We asked her to gallop up a hill and she went 3 strides, let out a big buck, and both of us went flying into the dirt. Both shocked my sister said “WOW I didn’t think she had that in her anymore!”. I walked the rest of the way after that, and we decided riding double may just be enough for Shady to tell us no.

I didn’t start showing consistently until I had my first pony. However, I remember my first horse show like it was yesterday. I went with my mom to Tranquility Manor Farm to watch my sister show her pony. I was not even planning on showing. I think I was probably 5 years old. However, one of the cutest little welsh ponies Farnley Merrimac was at the show and my trainer, Ms. Amy convinced my mom to let me do the lead-line division. They got me all fixed up with one of the many spare show jackets hanging in the trailer, and before I knew it I was all dressed up with bows in my hair ready to show. When I got on Ms. Amy pulled my boots down my heels to make it seem like my heels were really far down. She told me to sit up, just look straight ahead and keep my thumbs on top. I took my job very seriously. It eventually came down to me and another little girl on a bay pony so there was a “tie breaker”. We both lined up in the center and we had to take our feet out of our stirrups and put them back in, and gather and loosen our reins. At the end they crowned me champion and all I ever wanted to do after that was go to horse shows.

The first pony I ever owned was named Farnley Partridge aka “Party”. A small welsh pony who had a similar outlook on life as Phantom. Party was gifted to me by my parents when I was in the 4th grade. I remember it like it was yesterday. Like any kid, I desperately wanted my own pony. I wanted any new pony that I rode at my lesson barn that was for sale. However, Party was special because I really wanted him a year prior but he was sold. I was very sad about him leaving. So when he came back a year later and was for sale again I HAD to have him. One day I went with my mom and my sister to go ride and I was able to ride Party, even though I didn’t have a lesson. Then my mom handed me an orange envelope and inside it were his papers that had a sticky note on it that had in blue sharpie “New Owner— Maggie Holloway” with a smiley face. I could not have been happier, my first pony!

I had a very successful first year showing Party, and I thought he was the sweetest, most honest pony I could own. That was until we took him to his first Hunter Trial on a brisk fall day with 20mph wind gusts. That day, Party dropped me 4 times in the schooling ring over a simple flower box. Little did he know we had to gallop cross country over 15 fences that were decorated like the Spirit of Halloween at your nearest neighborhood shopping strip. That was the one of my first memories of ever being “Scared”. But I wanted to go cross country as it was one of my favorite things to do. So we did, and thank goodness there are no time faults or forced retirements on account of refusals. Because Party stopped at every.single.fence on course, and after a sharp turn around, a kick in the belly, and with my butt glued to the saddle. He would go right over it. This is how I learned to ride a scary fence. I often use a lot of these defensive yet positive riding tactics today, all learned from a fat 12.2 hand too smart for his own good pony.  After many successful showing years, and many failed attempts at selling him due to his quirky nature, I eventually ended up competing in a few pony races with him. Which is something I always wanted to do. Party helped me accomplish a lot of my goals as a young rider, we fox-hunted, evented, brought him home to cowboy around in the winter, I did pony camp, pony races, everything. Similar to all traits he was a jack of all trades but a master at none, but that is exactly the kind of pony that I needed.

Likewise to what I said in my “about me” my early days of riding were also far from linear. We did a little bit of everything, and I will get further into my days at Split Second Farm in another post.