My mother's list

As I recall it, when I was four, my grandparents thought I was old enough to have a pony. Sounds like a lovely idea, doesn't it? (Note: my family wasn't horse-clueless. They had space and a place for a pony, money to feed one, and the knowledge to care it. My grandparents at one point ran a stable, so they weren't just out of the blue thinking, "Gee, let's buy little Suzie a pony for her birthday and won't she be cute" without a thought for the consequences to child and pony.)

I certainly wasn't an accomplished rider at four. At the time, my folks - well, my mom - had two horses, an OTTB gelding and a older mare who was probably a QH. (I remember Cricket as a large, gentle bay, very round and extremely tolerant of children hanging on her.) When the pony buying process started I was ecstatic.

My very own pony!!!

But my mother was determined that this wouldn't just be any old backyard kid's pony. This pony had to have qualities. Not qualifications, you understand, but qualities. Now for all of you out there who immediately thought "oh-oh, show parent alert" - stop. At the top of her checklist were the following: soundness, steadiness, patience, ease of handling/manners, and familiarity with children. Size was a factor (not too small, not too large), and so was age - not too young. The perfect pony would ride, load, be of a size to be - eventually, after all, I was four - tacked up by a child, and have good feet. That was just the top of her list... it was a long list.

She (we) commenced looking for and at ponies. I don't remember exactly how many ponies we looked at, but at the time it seemed to be many. I do remember a beautiful palamino pony that was advertised as absolutely kid-broke (kids could crawl underneath him). So "broke" was he that he balked at leading; just planted his feet and wouldn't leave the yard. There were ponies that were too small, ponies that had no training, ponies that were highly trained and priced accordingly. Ponies that tried to bite, and/or had founder issues, and ponies that couldn't be caught, but sure were pretty. Lots and lots of ponies. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there were no ponies in existence that my mother couldn't find some sort of fault with! (Thank you, Mother!)

Finally we found Shan. Shandar was a shetland/welsh cross, a small bay with a white star and copious amounts of mane, tail, and hair in general. He had good feet, a happy outlook on life, and a hearty appetite. He liked kids. He bridled and saddled without problem. He was willing to leave the yard. His owner said he was trained to drive (we never tried), and she loved him; she hated to see him going to waste out in the field while she rode her big horses, but was selling because he no longer had a job and needed one. Shan passed the list test, and he came home with us.

In the winter Shan was solid, plushy hair, and you could barely find his ears. Not too tall, he was a bit small for a real horse saddle, and as I quickly got too big for a pony saddle, our adventures were mostly bareback. He could be challenging to catch, and he didn't much like to load, but he was willing to be decorated with flowers and ribbons, braided, blanketed (the OTTB's blanket, which you can imagine was a tad large), and fussed over. With a tiny tot aboard he would stick his nose to the closest adult's pocket and remain glued there, calmly starting and stopping, carrying his tiny charge with absolute care.

With a more experienced rider, he could be a bit hot-headed and difficult, but his resistance always seemed age and ability-appropriate. His patience was endless. When I fell off he would stop and wait for me - most of the time. He taught me many, many things without a single formal lesson. When we lost him to a freak accident at 16 - a pasture mate kicked out connecting with his jaw shattering it beyond repair - I was devastated. I'd grown too big to ride Shan by that point, but he was still mine, even if my sister was the one riding him.

I didn't really realize how important my mother's list was until I grew up. Just talk to anyone whose first experience with horses was awful because of an impulsive "cute" pony purchase. Look at the white faces in show rings; kids who are afraid because they've been over-mounted, and adults scared to ride after being traumatized by a pushy, ill-mannered, under-trained horse - we've all heard the stories and seen the results.

Shan is my foundation - when I think about why I love horses and riding, he's my warm, fuzzy, comfortable memory: the feeling I strive to get back when I ride now. (Again, thanks, Mother!)

My mother turned her pony-hunting list into an article - with pictures, yikes! - which ran in one of the horse magazines (Practical Horseman or Horse & Rider, I think) sometime in the mid-70s. It's probably hard to find now, but there are lots of good sources of information on horse-buying out there. Do yourself a favor: read at least one before you buy a horse/pony for your child. They'll thank you for it eventually!