This is me...

A big hello to everyone from savvy Scotland!

My name is Joanne, I'm 16 years old and I'm glad to be just starting out on my parelli journey.  I joined the Savvy Club a couple of months ago and am hoping to achieve my level 1 by the end of the year.

I currently own my first pony Danny, who has been a part of my life for almost 5 years.  He is a typical LBI, 12.2hh and 15 years old.  I first met him when I was volunteering in my local riding school where he would buck children off, bite handlers, buck - NOT riding school material!  But I had grown close to him and so I pleaded with the owners to let me ride him to see if I could make a diffrence.  For a while it worked - danny is not a difficult horse, he has a kind nature but day after day of bad young riders doing the same thing, making the same mistakes had pushed him over the edge.  For a while he behaved but he soon went back to his old ways with children - but would be an angel for me.  I'm not sure why - at the time I was NOT a good rider, Pehaps it was the fact I was the only one who would spend undemanding time with him or when I rode him, we did interesting, varied things that  knew he enjoyed.  After a while it was decidied he was to be sold and I was heartbroken.  I knew where he would go and it was not a natural place - it was a place where they broke horses, not gentled them. 

Even though I was only 14, without a penny I swore to him that I would save him.  There was no other way - I had to buy him myself.  And so, though it seemed impossible, far fetched and ridiculus I set out to make the £700 in 3 months that I needed.  Amazingly I did but I still had to get round my parents.  It was here that my stubborn/reckless/crazy side came out.  The only way I could get Danny was if he was under  £500.  He wasn't - he was £1200.  So , without my parents knowing, I got a job and secretly paid the owner each week until I had the price down to £500.  I made the owner sware to secerecy not to tell about the money and made her take Danny down from the advertising websites. 

And only then did I ask - Can I get a pony?  Thankfully the answer was yes.  Don't ask me what I would have done if the answer had been no....that would have been fun to explain =S

So after all the fear and the stress he was finally mine.  We moved yards and since then we've been extremely happy.  I grew out of him recently - although he can carry my weight with ease, I feel I'm too tall and it's not fair on him for me to ride.  But after all that we'd been through I had no intention of letting him go for a bigger horse. I was upset and lost.

That's when we found Parelli, and to this day I am eternally greatefull to Pat and Linda for showing me that there is so mch more you can do with your horse than simply ride.  I guess you could say that growing out of him was the best thing that ever happend to me!  I have no intention of ever selling Danny - something that perplexes most people I meet.  They can't understand why I would want a horse that I can't ride, that I can't compete with.  But after a few hours of tryng to catch, bridle, handle, load and ride their 17hh 'champion'  while I sit lazily in the middle of the school with Danny trotting circles around me, I think they get the message!