I Want A Pony, But We Don't Always Get What We Want, Do We?

...but sometimes we do.

I plan to do a rundown of what we have working for and against us in this project in a future post -- but figured the horse deserves a post of his own.

Meet Tucker:

Tucker is a 1998 model.  15.2 hands on a tall day and in shoes.  A narrow little thing, and has always been easy to fit up cardiovascular- and respiratory-wise, but slow to build power.  He moves about a 7, nice trot and canter, not the world's most motivated walk.  Jumped a bit steeplechase-y until the fences got big enough (and he got broke enough) to inspire an actually pretty respectable bascule.  Good with his front end and good behind.

He is a recovered spook-spin-bolter with an optional rodeo-quality buck.  But at 15, except for a random week or two every spring, has developed into a kid-safe solid citizen who hacks out bareback on buckle in mid-winter dark.

Tuck is smart.  A thinker and a problem-solver.  Sometimes too smart for his own good (or mine?) and thus a little too casual.  But given a sufficiently interesting challenge, he rises to the occasion every time.

He once opened a box of Thin Mints down the perforation and then, every bit as precise, opened up a sleeve of cookies and helped himself.

He has a very high opinion of himself, and also the world's best ears.

I love him madly.

Backstory?

Sire was one of those mostly-Thoroughbred Paints.  The mare was supposed to have been all Thoroughbred, but judging from how Tuck looks in motion and having talked to people who knew her?  There was Arab in there somewhere.  Baby Tucker was supposed to be colored and a western-style horse.  He flunked on both counts and so found his way as a bright-green sales horse to the hunter barn where I was riding in college, summer of 2002.

He has been my buddy ever since.

We did a little of this and a little of that and a whole lot of getting ourselves into trouble in those first years.  Switched to eventing for real in June of 2006 when he followed me halfway across the country.  We were not the world's most promising pair.  But we worked and we worked and by the time we started hitting the shows, were much improved.

Won a year-end award in Area 1 with just three recognized events under his belt, the first season.

Was reserve champ in the Senior Novice division in the third.

Third out of fourteen starters in our division at a long-format Training Three-Day the year after that, no faults added on endurance day, would have been second but for an unlucky rail due to rider error at fence #1 on the stadium course.

He was a regionally very competitive BN/N horse.  Needs help at Training and we've been plagued with consistent inconsistency; we are capable of acing all three phases, but not usually on the same day (and it turns out that's part of the game...!).  Still, he qualified for the area championships every season without fail, and did it even though his rider was learning the sport right along with him and even though he, as a result, had to take joke after joke (after joke!).

He is a pretty cool event horse, that Tucker of mine.

So why would I dream of taking this good event horse and trying to turn him into something else?  Funny you should ask!  Stay tuned for next post, or maybe the one after that.