Life with a Retired Show Horse: New Adventures

If you know anything about me, it is that I have a horse named Bella and I talk about her a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. For those who don’t know, Bella (Miss Believin’) is my Saddlebred mare that I showed for eight years before retiring her in October 2015. She was my first show horse and I couldn’t bring myself to part with her during my show days. We showed in three different divisions and she took me from junior exhibitor to amateur status.

Bella's reaction when I say "let's go for a ride" now that she's retired.

Bella has always taken care of me. She is game and loved her job as a show horse, but she never did more than what her rider could handle. I’ve spent over eight years at this point learning this mare, and she never ceases to pull something new and test me. She occasionally pulls stunts on me now that she never thought of back when I got her a twelve year old. And in her newly retired life, she is the same old Bella. All mare. All attitude. All the time.

Where Bella has been boarded the last couple months since her retirement there are short trail paths that connect a few open fields together. I’ve ridden Bella around on stable property before where I had her in training and around the pond there, but she’s never had to walk through a bunch of trees. One day over this past Christmas break I decided to take Bella out on the trail paths. I knew she loved outside, but I also knew there wasn’t going to be much stopping along the way. Once we were on our trail ride, there were no breaks. Bella is not one to stop and sight see. I tried this before on our trail rides around the previous property and we ended up spinning in circles until we were walking forward again.

Taking in the view of Dark Horse Training Center at Lismore Farm.

Now, Bella is a smart horse. I thought she might be hesitant first time out on these new paths, but I knew she would be able to get through them with some encouragement. As it turned out, the trail paths themselves were the least of my worries. On the way from the barn to the trails at the back of the property, Bella got scared of her own shadow. She’s never been a very spooky horse, but there have been a few things come across our path that she really did not like. But a shadow? This I did not expect. Bella stopped and refused to walk forward. When I kicked her she spun around. So then out came the whip and with a few small encouraging taps we got over the shadow fear.

To make things more interesting, we had to walk between two paddocks to get to the start of the trails. In the field to our left there was a mare and a mini donkey. I’m not sure if Bella had ever seen a mini donkey before, but she was spinning around again and trying to go the opposite direction. The donkey was following her along the fence line and wanted to play, and the little mare who has beat up so many other horses in the field was scared. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to “I AM MARE. HEAR ME ROAR.”

We finally got over our fear of the mini donkey by stopping (and squirming) for a few minutes and looking at it. After that we went through our first path of trees. This went quite well for a horse who had never done anything of the sort, but Bella was all pumped up this day for some reason. She was already wound up when I first got on and then going on a new adventure like this just made her even more wound up. My plan was to walk the trails, but Bella had other ideas. We ended up marching through that trail path and through the first field, even trying to trot along the way.

Then came the second trail path.

This one was a game changer. Bella started through the path confidently, but then she came across the top of a drain pipe that was sticking out of the ground. This was more of a challenge than I thought it would be. We walked up to it, spun around, went back to the field. Walked up to it, spun around, went back to field. Repeat and repeat. This wasn’t the first time Bella had to step over something, but she was not stepping over that drain pipe. At this point, she was even more worked up. I decided to trot her through the trail path, hoping she would use the momentum to go over the drain pipe. This decisions kind of worked, and I say kind of because it didn’t quite go as planned. Bella trotted down the path, stopped in front of the drain pipe, and jumped. My very first time jumping my horse was not on purpose, but at least we were clear of that path and onto the second field.

Bella marched on, refusing to flat walk at this point. We ended up in a slow trot the second half of that field and through the third trail path into the last field. Now Bella wanted to show trot. No amount of whoops or woahs would change her mind on this one. We turned around to head back to the barn and Bella acted like she was about to trot through the gate at the World’s Championship Horse Show. We made our way back to the second field and I gave up holding her back at this point. We cantered our way through the field, which was another new experience with Bella for me. I had never cantered her in an open field before, and she never once tried anything bad. There were no kicks, bucks, or jumps. She went straight through the field and carried me safely along the way.

When we got back to the second trail path, I was wondering how we were going to get back over the drain pipe. This time Bella marched up to it confidently, but she didn’t just step over it. She placed her hoof on top of it as if to say, “Screw you drain pipe. I’m not afraid anymore.” Then she proceeded to march through the path before we took off cantering through the first field.

Bella ended up marching through the final path and continued to march all the way back to the barn. Although it had been in my plans to walk the entire ride, I enjoyed the time I had to experience new things with Bella. Not everything went smooth on our trail ride, but Bella was brave and found a way to overcome her fears, all the while never putting me in danger. As much as I will miss showing her this year, I’m also excited to be able to play around with her and learn new things.

When weather permits, we will work on getting desensitized to the trails so we are not always that wound up!

Play time in the round pen.

Sometimes I think Bella enjoys retirement too much (not really, that's just one dirty horse).

Bella and her new best friend, Belle, who also happens to be a Saddlebred. This is the first horse I've seen Bella be very good friends with and not try to assert dominance over.

Bella and Belle running away when I tried to catch Bella to ride.