Started From The Bottom, Now We’re Where?
My first young horse was difficult in many ways. I didn’t know he was going to be “mine” in any sense of the word, I was just doing my job. I was there when he was born. I was up until 2am to make sure he could stand, pleading with him to nurse. I was the one who halter broke him, who taught him to lead, who was unlucky enough to try to medicate, deworm and groom him. He was large, strong, willful, and totally uncooperative. It should have been, and for many others I am sure it would have been, what made me sure I didn’t like baby horses. What happened was quite the opposite. I fell in love. First, I fell in love with this very large pushy colt, and then I fell in love with the journey.
I have always been drawn to challenges, always chosen the road less traveled, and aways been the one who wanted the hardest option; perhaps that’s one of the reasons I was drawn to this work. That colt was a chestnut with far too much white for an Irish Sport Horse. His name was Tully Mac’s Graffiti, on account of those splashes of white. Less than 24 hours after he was born, he was fast asleep with his head in my lap and as I stroked his fuzzy baby coat I thought “Hey, this isn’t so hard!” The next four years of my life proved just how wrong I was.
Tully Mac’s Graffiti, a.k.a. Conner, at roughly 36 hours old
As he grew I called him “little monster” as a term of affection, but no one else seemed to think it was endearing. He was really not interested in cooperating for anything. He was not easy to catch for anyone but me. He hated having his not-so-tiny feet trimmed, but showed real promise as a yearling for his ability to do airs above the ground. He nearly hanged himself trying to escape the cross ties, and was nothing less than an adorable nuisance. He thought of most humans as funny playmates, which became more and more concerning as he grew closer and closer to his 17.1 hands.
Conner at 13 months
Over the next three years of his life, I would work with him only occasionally. I was in college and worked at the farm in the summers and on school breaks. After he was weaned, he lived in a field with a babysitter gelding. When I wasn’t there, he only got handled when his feet were trimmed or when he got his yearly vaccinations. That’s it. This was his life until he was three, then things changed for both of us. I graduated college and came to work full-time at the farm as an assistant trainer. That same summer, Conner turned three and it was time to start him under saddle. So off I went, into the adventure of starting my first horse under saddle. Now, what you need to understand here is I had started horses with other people. I had been a ground person, been part of the backing process, learned other trainers’ methods, and so on. Until this point, however, it had always been under someone else’s direction. I had ridden plenty of green horses, but always from the point where someone else had worked out the major kinks. Needless to stay I was nervous, but thought I had some idea of what I was doing. What I didn’t know was how quickly that would change, nor that it would be another two years before that feeling would come back at all.