My friend Rachel called me to tell me that she had found a rather flashy chestnut online and suggested that we go and look at him. I, always being one to get excited about horses, quickly agreed and off we went to go see this horse. After about an hour's drive we finally arrive at a beautiful race horse barn. The lady brought us to his stall and there before me was Little Risky. He was short, skinny, had bad feet and cribbed constantly. Yet one look at his sweet face and I knew that he had the biggest heart in the world. After a test ride and a vet check, I began monthly payments on him. He came home March 28th, 2010 and it was perhaps one of the best days of my life.
He settled in relatively fast and we got along great. It was probably because I was feeding him twice a day, may have helped just a bit. He ended up being one of the most food motivated horses I've ever been around. You'd show him grain and he'd whinny and prick his ears forward and do just about anything to get to that bucket. At least he was cute, kept him alive when he started pulling apart fence boards from his cribbing. Oh well, all the best horses are cribbers after all.
He really was one of the best horses I've ever ridden. He didn't know much, but I began to teach him the basics of dressage and then onto jumping. Jumping, now that was his strong suit. He had been a steeplechaser before I bought him, which probably was why he jumped every jump so carefully. He would leave a four foot gap over every pole, which surprised the heck out of me the first couple times. It took us a while but soon he began to take jumps with more ease and we started jumping consistently at 3'3" and even went to our first eventing competition with jumps at that height.
We were eliminated, but that was alright. He did his best! I'm so proud of him and can't wait for the next show! Not a horse will replace my Little Risky, he's the best :)
