The Mango Story - LONG VERSION

From AlexBrownRacing

The FULL Mango Story

There was this guy, with a 7-horse trailer, who used to come to our barn ever so often with a bunch of horses for us to look at and try out. These were horses off the track or from people’s backyards etc. -------------- That, is how I USED TO DESCRIBE him… Now, of course I know better, and old “Big-John”, as we called him, was most likely one of those famous “Kill Buyers” or possibly a dealer who most likely made business with KBs… It disgusts me now, that I used to chit chat with this man, talk about horses, he used to call me the “snake-woman”, as I was nursing a snake back to health, who had been slightly injured by a barn cat, etc – never did it even occur to me that he was anything else but a “nice” guy with contacts at the race track…

The horses he used to bring, were all breeds, but mostly Thoroughbreds, plus some quarter horses and paints. We’d get on them real fast to see if they would possibly be anything we could put some training into and either keep for lesson horses or sell to customers. If we saw ANY kind of potential in them, we would usually keep them for a period of time and start working with them. We re-trained MANY of those horses and most of them were sold to clients, who then kept boarding them at our barn, either continuing taking lessons on them, or putting them back in training with us for a while longer. Some also became lesson horses at our barn.

Now, there were some, that just didn’t fit into any of the things we did, they might have been great as polo-ponies or something else – but, we did let Big-John pick a few of them back up… If I would have KNOWN about SLAUGHTER what I know today, about kill-buyers, auctions and all that horrible stuff – I would NEVER have let that happen!!! I WOULD have found SOMETHING good about every horse, even the most “impossible” individuals, and would have made it work somehow. And all of this happened while the Texas slaughter plants were open and running, I just had no idea what was going on! It is so sad, and my heart aches, just thinking about that I might have actually SENT some horses DIRECTLY to SLAUGHTER, because I didn’t believe in them or didn’t feel like putting in all that extra time and patience it would have taken to “fix” them… I even remember some of their names; we had one I called “Yellow” (a buckskin) and after he left (!) another one took his place who I called “Mellow”, then there was “Scarface” etc… I thought “Big-John” was a “nice” guy and just a regular horse dealer, who would present the horses to some other trainer, if we didn’t like them. I actually thought he LIKED horses and that he was just doing them a favor, by getting them trained, placed and with a happy ending, while he made a buck or two… And maybe that is who Big-John was, I would LIKE to think so, but the more I have learned, the more I am afraid that he was just another KB, and only made a stop at our barn on the way to the slaughter houses.

Well, MANGO, came off of Big-John’s truck. He had picked him up in Louisiana, at a girls Catholic School, were he had been DONATED. He was crazy and considered dangerous, and of course they could not use him at the school, as nobody could even enter his stall to put a halter on him, much less try to RIDE him. When Mango came to us, he looked awful. He was skinny, longhaired, had fungus all over his body, sore back and joints, NO muscle what so ever and especially NO NECK!! Just a BIG head with scars all over it and a very dead, yet worried look in his eye. Somehow we got a saddle on him and there were 3 people holding him, as I was tossed up on his back. This poor horse was so SCARED, he was shivering and rolling his eyes and the more they held him still, the worse he got – I thought he was going to have a heart attack…. So I just said “LET GO OF HIM” and off he went, with me just clinging on to his mane for dear life. We were in the covered arena, so there was a limit to how much speed he could pick up, but he was just galloping around and around and I had this huge smile on my face! I had never ridden a better CANTER in my life, and I thought that if this horse didn’t know how to JUMP, then I don’t know WHAT horse would! After, I don’t know how many laps of wild canter around, Mango finally started to slow down and kind of listened a LITTLE to me, as I was just talking to him trying to calm him down, and when we came by my boss at a slower pace, he had noticed my smile and said, “if you didn’t already have Bosse, this would be the horse for you, right?” I just nodded, couldn’t wipe that smile off my face…

We kept Mango, who was put in a stall on a “fatten-up-diet”. A few weeks went by, and I was at that time very upset about a horse, who was leaving to England and whom I had totally fallen in love with. He had an English owner, who was a big client of my boss’, kept buying horses from him from Germany and this particular horse and I had developed a close relationship as I had started showing him and we were doing great, becoming champions and reserve champions at every horseshow we went to. Well, the owner decided that the horse was doing so well, that he wanted to take him “home” to England, and we KNEW the horse would get screwed up and refusing to jump again, as his owner was one of those typical amateurs with lots of money…and not so much riding skills (if you know what I mean...) The horse also had an eye infection, that needed to be medicated, and we were worried that it wouldn’t be taken care of properly and that he definitely wasn’t ready to be shipped yet. We tried to talk the owner out of taking the horse, but he was determined. So, the day he left I had a very SAD day and I just walked through the barn checking on all the horses (100 stalls) and I came by Mango’s stall. I had totally forgotten about Mango, since the day he first got there, and was kind of surprised to see him still there. I went into his stall and he immediately moved up into a corner, just staring at me with a scared look in his eyes. I started talking to him and told him how sad I was and he was listening to me and that’s when I saw his EYES! Behind all that “scruff”, the scars in his face, the ugly neck with the long raggedy mane, behind all that I noticed the most beautiful EYES and I didn’t see the “dangerous”, crazy horse, but a very MISUNDERSTOOD and mistreated soul and he actually took a step towards me as to try to comfort me. I reached out to try to touch him and he was on alert, ready to move back into his corner. But he would let me put my hand on his shoulder, shivered a little when I touched him, but didn’t move. I didn’t try to touch his face or get any closer, I was just happy to see that there was SOME trust there, and I backed off and left his stall. As I was leaving, I could see him move up towards the stall door and he followed me with those beautiful eyes, as I was walking down the aisle.

I went to look for my boss and asked him what was going on with Mango? Has anybody done anything with him yet, etc? He said that everybody was afraid of him and that nobody wanted to even take him out of his stall. And I said, “hm, that would be a shame, if he wouldn’t be given a chance – with that CANTER of his, I am sure we could fix him up…” So my boss asked me if I wanted to try. He said, “start working with him and see what you think”. And I said, “OK, I might just try that…”

So, the next day I armed myself with a bag of carrots and a halter and went to see Mango. He was in his corner again, when he saw me he started coming towards me, but then he saw the halter and gave me an angry look and turned his butt towards me. I kind of ignored that move and went in there showing him the carrots. And was I lucky, that this horse was a SUCKER FOR CARROTS or I might not have gotten any further ever with him, than that day! He did not hesitate taking a carrot from my hand, but trying to get the halter on wasn’t the easiest thing, as he would just raise his head and be way out of my reach, still getting away with getting the carrot, of course ☺ Well, I got the halter on him and got him out of his stall. He was a tall horse, skinny but tall, and he had a way of trying to intimidate people by just lifting his head way up and kind of showing his teeth and always being in a state of “almost panicking”. But I didn’t see “dangerous”– it was strictly FEAR and abused trust. Somebody had totally killed all the trust he must have had at SOME point, for people, and Mango had figured out how to make people just leave him alone. But I couldn’t leave him alone. Not after that ONE time I was on his back, I had to find a way for this horse to trust me, to let me back up there eventually.

I started working on his coat, scrubbed and scrubbed to get rid of all the dead hair and fungus, and Mango actually liked it, I am sure he had been itching for a LONG time. Cut off some of his long, ugly mane, forget about PULLING mane at this point, that would have made him crawl out of his own skin! Took him to the shower and thought he would throw a fit, but he was OK (kind of…) as long as the water didn’t come near his face. Half way up his neck was about all he tolerated. I wanted to get him on a lounge line, to let him move around a little, but I knew that trying to get a BRIDLE on him, the first day, would just be asking too much. And I normally DON’T lunge horses in a halter, just one of those things like asking to get killed or at least have a horse DRAG you in the dirt… But I made an exception for Mango, figured I’ll just let him drag me until he stops and close the gates and make sure nobody else was in the arena. And dragged me, he did! He ran off about 3 or 4 times, but by the time my boss happened to walk by, Mango had actually settled down and was cantering quite nicely around, with those SUPER STRIDES of his, and my boss asked me “so, what do you think? Does he have any potential?” And I said ”yes, I think he does, but I would have to see him free-jump first…” So, my boss said “so, I give him to you to fix and if you manage to make something out of him, you’ll get part of the profit when he sells, OK?” I said “OK” and thanked Mango quietly for behaving right at that moment… My boss said “good, then I’ll call Big-John and tell him NOT to pick him up”

THAT’S HOW CLOSE MANGO WAS – TO BE NO-MORE!!!!

A couple of days later, it was free-jumping day. We used to free-jump the horses every Wednesday morning, and I was anxious to see how Mango would handle that activity. He went totally NUTS, when we turned him loose in the arena, God only knows when the last time was he had been running free like that. And, of course, the horse could JUMP! It wasn’t the prettiest thing to watch, as he didn’t jump in a nice form or anything, mostly because he was in such a state of “mixed emotions”; running out of happiness, running out of fear (what are these people on the ground going to do to me? They actually have WHIPS in their hands!! Maybe I’d be better off just leaving this arena, the fence isn’t THAT high…etc) and wanting to jump the jumps, but not really sure if that was allowed… So he basically just threw himself over – but clearing everything easily! Both my boss and I looked at each other, nodded and smiled. “Told you so”, I was the first one to speak. “Well, Big-John isn’t going to let this horse go cheap, I just got his papers, and he is bred to the hill”, my boss said, “and now that we know that he can JUMP too… well, we’re just going to have to fix him up and we’ll be able to get a lot of money for him”. And I was thinking, “if only I didn’t already have a horse…” – but then threw that thought out of my mind, as this was strictly going to be my “project”. Mango raced around for a while in the arena, after we were done jumping, we didn’t want him to jump too many times, as surely he would get sore, since he had been mostly in a stall lately, but we let him run and enjoy himself until he settled down and when he stopped, he would let me come up to him and catch him, thanks to that irresistible CARROT.

So, then my work began. Tacking Mango up was a project in itself, time consuming, nerve wrecking and PATIENCE building! Mango was panicky and scared, but he also used the “if I throw a fit – they will stop” kind of attitude, so there was always a fine line, were we would balance, him and me. Me trying to figure out WHEN he was REALLY scared and him seeing how far he could push me – and I guess that’s where we started bonding… We compromised a LOT.

The saddle was a little intimidating to Mango, mostly I think because he had had a sore back and he just simply THOUGHT it was going to hurt, but the GIRTH was the real killer. I have never met a “girthier” horse, just it touching his skin made him freak out at first. I had to do one hole at a time. First just hanging there, then another hole, to where it almost touched his skin, and then wait. He would take a deep breath and then when he exhaled, the girth would touch him and he would jump in the air, in the cross-ties… Then another hole, and another (with some more minor explosions…) until at least the saddle would stay in place, if he moved. Putting the bridle on was another hour or so of patience and lots of carrots. On good days I could close the noseband on him, but most of the time I just took it off – anything that would restrain him, would cause him to panic. The first three steps out of the barn, was always predictable. It would be three giant leaps with grunting noises from Mango. Maybe, he inherited that behavior pattern from his great, great grand father War Admiral (when I made the Admiral’s wiki, I read that about him, and I thought that was funny – just like Mango..), who knows, but it became almost comical, as it would happen EVERY TIME.

Then I would have him on a lunge line, tighten the girth a hole, few more laps around, another hole and so on, until the saddle was secured enough for me to climb up there. In the beginning I had to have some help when mounting. But I could not have anybody HOLD Mango, if you touched the reins, he would freak out, so I would back him into a corner and have a couple of people just stand in front of his shoulders, so he couldn’t really go anywhere. The good thing was, that he would always run AWAY from people (or dangers), never OVER, so any physical person I could find around, when it was time for mounting, would do. I had to be quick about the mounting though, just one foot in the stirrup, up and then Mango was on his way – that was about as long as he could actually stand still without losing his mind! And, in the beginning, I had to be all alone in the arena. Mango was so afraid of ANYTHING coming towards him, whether it was a horse or just a person on foot, he would stop dead in his tracks, spin around and bolt the other way. Even if a person would approach OUTSIDE of the fence, it would scare the crap out of him - flashbacks of those jets landing I assume! (I found out later, that one of the persons who had had Mango and tried to work on his phobias, had ridden him in a dressage arena at an air force base, where the landing strip for the big fighter jets was right next to the arena…)

And with riding him, I just rode him in a very low, long and relaxed stretched frame for a long time, probably more than a month, just to relax that back of his, lengthening his stride and slowly building muscle, never sitting down on his back, always posting and 2point. When I eventually started riding with some company, I had to make sure the other horse was always behind Mango and that he never had to confront another horse, coming straight at him. Slowly, I was able to ride with more company, and then eventually take him outside, in the outside jumping arena. I remember the first time I rode him outside, around all the jumps, making circles and figure8s around anything out there. I was so excited about his progress and I had to tell everybody.

We kept free-jumping him once a week and he started to get the hang of it, settled down a bit and jumped better, still in a bit of a rush though. I started jumping little jumps under saddle as well, and he did a lot better, when I could help him get there right and wait without “attacking” everything. The little jumps, for Mango though, were merely “bigger canter strides” instead of actual jumps, and we had to start jumping a litter bigger for him to be excited and challenged.

And a “challenge” it was! He would canter nicely in a nice rhythm up to the jumps, until we were about 3-4 strides out, then he would take charge and take one or a couple of giant leaps, end up at the base of the jump and somehow launch over from a standstill. It was some CRAZY times, back then, never knowing WHERE we were going to end up or if we were just going to crash-land somewhere… Spectators would hold their breath and sometimes close their eyes, as I guess it looked even worse, than it felt. I was pretty confident in my “crazy mount” though, despite his wild approaches, I knew how he just DID NOT want to touch any rails and if we would leave the ground – we WOULD land on the other side. Some times, Mango opted to NOT jump though, and if he ever did refuse, he almost totally lost his mind, I guess he thought he was going to get punished… I think, and of course it is only speculations, but I think somebody taught him how to jump really well, at some point, but then another person with either not much experience OR not a very good eye for jumping distances, rode him, and that’s how he became so insecure and messed up. Mango needs a LOT of help, to jump. He can jump anything, but he totally relies on his rider to GET him there, to a fair take off spot. Funny, I have even been accused of helping him TOO much! This German event trainer, whom I really liked, because he liked getting into Mango’s “brain” and work with all his “phobias”, used to say that I helped him too much and what are you going to do when you are in a Grand Prix and you mess up and HE has to help YOU? My answer would be that I just hope that I don’t mess up, so that I can help HIM, that’s the least I can do for him… I know what he meant though, and would agree with him with any “normal” horse, but what can I say, Mango was anything BUT normal… ☺ Sorry, I got off track and went ahead of the story there…

Mango gradually became more relaxed with having other horses and people around him and I started attending the Saturday weekly jumping group lessons with him. I would jump Bosse first and then do the same thing with Mango (only not as big as with Bosse), as we always had a few riders showing up late and the lessons eventually would turn into two groups. It was funny to watch Mango change, when there were other horses around and with somewhat of a routine. His competitive mind started showing and he really WANTED to do well! Sometimes the excitement would of course get the best of him and he would “freak out”, but most of the time he actually did so well, that HE would be the one showing the other ones HOW to do it! And pretty soon, it would be Mango doing the bigger jumps, instead of Bosse. Mango also became somewhat of a “gymnastics specialist” – he LOVED gymnastics, especially when the German event trainer came for clinics, because he made it really complicated (gradually though), and Mango had to actually THINK! AND change his stride, body and balance… Mango HATED jumping from a trot, but in a clinic (with our favorite trainer) he actually was focused enough to jump a 4 foot (tall and WIDE) triple bar from a TROT! AND without getting cranky – he actually liked it! I tried to get this trainer to get on Mango, just to see how he would do with another rider, even though he was a male person, I thought Mango would tolerate him because he was gentle and Mango had gotten used to him being around a lot. But the trainer said no – he didn’t want to screw him up!! He thought I should really think twice before putting anther rider on Mango, after all the hard work and the obvious bonding the two of us had made. That was kind of a nice compliment – but, HOW are we going to be able to sell this horse, if nobody can even try him out??? My boss had tried several times, to get on Mango, during this whole process and development of Mango, but it failed BIG TIME every time. As soon as he would stand next to him and grab the stirrup, Mango would be GONE, or at least have jumped a couple of feet sideways, grunting, shivering and rolling those crazy eyes!

Time went by, and we had customers almost weekly who came to look at horses for sale. We would show them Mango, but then let them get on another horse first, like a more settled warmblood, to see what kind of a rider the person was. One thing I learned from my time in a sales barn is, that people almost always are NOT the rider they say they are… None of the customers we had, were confident and talented enough to actually even TRY to put that foot in the stirrup! And I always would be relieved when my boss said “No Mango for him/her – he would kill them”, even though they usually would do OK on the other horses they tried out. Some horses are just more forgiving than others ☺

Well, Mango kept making progress and my boss was getting antsy about that he hadn’t sold yet, as with any horse that would stay more than six or so months… And the time came when I had to go to Europe for a couple of weeks (for my sister’s wedding). My boss “threatened” to take Mango with him to a horse show, while I was gone, ride him himself and SELL him. I begged him NOT to do it, as it would have thrown everything we had worked on out the window, and set us back months and months – if Mango would even be fixable at all after that, he definitely wasn’t ready to go to a horse show, and especially NOT without me! But my boss wouldn’t budge, whether he was serious or not, I could not let that happen to Mango. I went home and counted my money, gave my boss a check and Mango was SAFE – he was MINE! Not that I needed another gelding, and already 10 years old, who probably would not pass a vet check with all his joint problems and bad feet, but none of that mattered at that time – he was mine and nobody was allowed to “mess” with him.

It was such an awesome feeling, that this crazy horse, with the most amazing canter ever and who started jumping better and better, and higher and higher – was actually MINE. I remember one day as I was riding him in the dressage arena, I was just enjoying his canter, like one of those days I just did not want to get off his back (even though I probably had another 8 or so horses to ride that day…), and I turned around to another person on a dressage horse and told her; “the next time I say I want this or that horse, because they are so awesome, jump so perfect or are just breathtakingly beautiful (which happened all the time with the many warmbloods that came through our barn) – just remind me that I already HAVE the NICEST horse of them all! Nothing can beat this CANTER!!”

Then there were the people who said I was out of my mind even thinking about eventually taking my “crazy” horse to a horse show. Somebody suggested giving him the show name “Suicide”, if I ever were to start showing him… And I can’t really blame the “skepticals”, as they had watched him do some pretty crazy stuff and it was probably a miracle that we were both still alive. We would start jumping bigger, approaching the 5 foot mark, and my boss would just love to put the rails up as he was getting really excited about the way Mango was turning out. As he kept improving, he really started impressing on a lot of people and they would come and watch him jump. With an “audience” my boss couldn’t help himself (!) and just kept putting the rails higher and higher, to see if there was even a limit for Mango’s jumping ability. The bigger it got, the more excited Mango became, and even though he jumped anything, there was sometimes a big compromise I had to make as far as the form in between the jumps. He would come around a turn approaching a triple combination out of the wrong lead, head stuck up in the air etc. I just couldn’t “mess” with him too much and expect “perfection”, as all he wanted to do was to GET to that next jump. I have video of him jumping a triple combination where the last jump was 5’8” – I can still remember the feeling of that “hang-time” where I counted seconds, then a stride and hanging in the air again… Usually, when we had jumped a bigger size jump like that once, my boss would say, as we were approaching it for the second time; “Now HANG ON honey – he knows it’s there now!” and Mango would jump it even BIGGER the next time, almost jumping me out of the tack! But what an AWESOME feeling, at that time I had never jumped that big before. And the horse I was on, was mine, and not someone I got to enjoy for a while, train to jump better only to see it be sold to a person who had the huge amount of money for which we sold most jumpers!

Now, even though we knew Mango could JUMP, at home, he still hadn’t been to a horse show with all the extra excitement and stress that that involves. Would Mango be able to handle all the horses, people, loud noises, jumping courses with flowers, colorful gates, boxes and a totally new and unfamiliar environment, not to mention the hectic warm up ring with the crowdedness of other horses “flying” around? The time came to put him to the test.

We took a bunch of horses and headed to a show. Mango seemed fine going on the trailer and settling in at the show grounds. As we always do, we arrived the afternoon before the show started to be able to get on all the horses in the arena and jump some jumps. Mango’s first warm up at his first show was a riot, to say the least. He was a FREAK! He would be either “high-stepping” sideways, backwards or upwards or bolting at a full gallop with no steering OR brakes! All I could do was to try to stay on the outside and let him run, without running into other horses or over people. I tried to jump a couple of jumps when the “coast was clear”, but those moments were few and far between, as it gets very busy in the ring the night before a show starts. It was a very scary experience for Mango, and an equine massage person came up to me, suggesting that my horse needed a relaxing massage… As I tried not to be rude and gently asked her to get out of the way or she was going to get run over, by Mango who could NOT stand still there in the midst of horses running and jumping all around him – “a massage, great, try to get close enough to him to even touch him when he is in this state of panic” :)

After a long, cool shower, Mango finally settled down and was able to go back to his stall. There he took it all in, just looking around, very curiously and God only knows what he was thinking. Was he having flash backs from his former life on the race track? Would he be thinking, come the morning, that he would go out there and run a race? Who knows, but he kept our groom up ALL night, just banging his food bucket and walking around in his stall. (as our groom would soon find out would become the “Mango routine” – always banging the food bucket all night, the first night at any show!)

So, for Mango’s first class I tried to just keep him calm and relaxed. Warmed him up mostly outside of the warm up ring, by walking him around the show grounds and just did a short warm up and jumped a few jumps, right before it was our time to enter the ring. It was a bit scary, in the warm up, as I didn’t know HOW he was going to handle the stress, but believe it or not, he wasn’t that bad. I think he had thought about it over night, processed the whole experience from the night before and realized he COULD do it. For his first course I just tried to make it as easy and comfortable for him as possible. If he got too excited and started hopping up & down sideways, I would just make a circle and continue the course as smooth as possible. I don’t know how many faults we racked up for his first class, between the circles and the time faults, but we got through the course and that was one of Mango’s biggest victories, even though the jumps were only around 3’ – the fact that I knew he could handle it, I just knew that nothing would stop this horse from excelling now!! :)

From there on he got better and wiser, as the horse show went on. By the last day of the show, he went through his courses quite nice and controlled. As more horse shows came and went, I could start to actually add some speed and tighter turns in the jump offs, something I didn’t dare try in the beginning, as my main focus was to keep him calm. He started to get really into the whole showing thing and was beginning to collect a few ribbons. The first ribbon he ever got was a second place finish in an “optimum time” class, where the whole idea was to get a smooth ride in a nice and controlled canter, and of course, leave all the jumps up. With his huge canter stride I had to use the whole arena, take as big turns as possible and just let him roll on. And it worked out! Then, when we started to really “go for it” in the jump offs, the ribbons started to really come in :) When Mango had a GOOD day jumping, he was really hard to catch in the jump off! Of course he had BAD days as well, he is a very sensitive horse, and anything can set him off . Whenever there was a horse in the warm up ring, who got into trouble, like refusing to jump or crashing into a jump, or a rider “beating” on his horse with a whip (yes, sadly, things like that happen at jumper shows…) – Mango would get very upset and at those times, the best thing to do was to just put him back in his stall. Once he would “loose it” there was just no way to calm him down. I would also always make sure I never stressed him, or that I was stressed. Usually I had lots of horses to ride at the show and most of the time several in each class. It can get hectic running from one horse to another, and with Mango, I could not have anybody help me. I had to tack him up myself, warm him up, and cool him out – and I had to plan the rides so that I had enough time for him without rushing. I also always had to have that carrot handy, without it, there is no way to get a bridle on him. I used to joke around, saying, that if any of my competitor riders wanted to screw with me, all they would have to do was to hide my carrots – as I would not be able to even tack Mango up… :)

Mango even started to get a small fan club :), some boarders in our barn and also some kids at horse shows, who had taken a liking to him. We sometimes got cards and a box of chocolate and a bag of carrots after completed horse shows. It was really cute. I guess Mango was always an interesting horse to watch, as you really never knew WHAT he was going to do…He was never really consistent, in his performance. He could do super in one class only to come in the ring again and not wanting to have ANYTHING to do with a certain jump, usually that would be a red & white jump (and people say horses are color blind, huh?)… Or he could warm up beautifully and be very impressive and then just “loose it” if we had to wait at the in-gate for a few minutes. He would very rarely have any rails, if anything he would “chicken out” and refuse to jump and most of the time WAY before we even got close to the particular jump. Or sometimes the excitement would get the best of him and he would just start hopping up & down and I just couldn’t get him to move forward… We used to joke about him and compare him to a cucumber and a pickle: the idea was to keep him “cool as a cucumber”, but when things went wrong, he turned into a “pickle”, sour and non-negotionable… He was also extremely sensitive to anything going wrong, especially with my efforts. If I would get a little bit off balance and touch his mouth when he jumped or touch the back of the saddle, his response was sometimes that he refused to jump the next jump! I needed to stay out of his mouth and OFF his back. Period.

When we were jumping 4’3”-4’6” classes successfully, my boss started pushing for me to enter him in a Grand Prix. He said: “he already jumps Grand Prix courses at home, why can’t you just show him at that level too?” Not that I didn’t want to, I just didn’t want to do it until I was sure that we were going to do it well. I didn’t just want to take him in a Grand Prix and “just” get around the course – I wanted it to look good and have the confidence needed to not make a mess of the whole thing…and possibly ruin everything we had worked for. Well, my boss kept pushing, and during a November show, when Mango had been unusually consistent and successful, I finally gave in. We watched the “Welcome Stake”, which is an Open class and usually an indication of how big the Grand Prix is going to be, as it is the same course designer and usually the horses who do the Welcome Stake, also enter the Grand Prix. The Welcome Stake wasn’t that big, so we figured “why not?” – let’s do it! I asked Mango for his opinion, and whether I read his signs right or not, I don’t know, but I got the feeling that he was ready…

When we were ready to walk the course, my boss had just looked at it getting set up, and he came back and told me that “it wasn’t too bad, not huge at all”. As I was stepping the distance between the jumps in the double combination, and I noticed that the top rail was above my shoulder, by my ear, I looked over at my boss and he had a nervous smile on his face, shrugging it off with another “I told you, it’s not THAT big…” The fact is, that this was one of the bigger courses I had seen at this show arena and many of the jumps were 5’3” and some a lot WIDER than that!! But for a $ 25,000 Grand Prix, I guess it was just the way it should be…Perhaps not for a horse who was about to jump his very FIRST Grand Prix…

But Mango was ready. He showed a lot of confidence in the warm up ring, and he seemed to like the extra excitement that was in the air; the orchestra playing, the extra audience in the bleachers, the dinner tables set up with guests dressed up for the occasion, “mom” wearing her show coat – all of the “buzz” just made him feel very special, like if everybody was there to watch HIM!

Not until we were approaching the first jump did he realize that this was a little bigger than what we were used to. He hesitated for a slight moment, I felt as if he asked me: “are you sure about this, mom?” and I gave him a little push on his withers, to let him know that “yes, time to GO!” – and he did, so much in fact that in the bending line between jump #1 and jump #2, where I had planned to go on 8 strides, he turned too fast and left a stride out and HE decided when it was time to go!! So there you have it – he DID actually save me, when I needed him to, in a Grand Prix course – I could hear my event trainer’s words “what are you going to do when…” And I even got left behind when he took off, but all he did was shake his head a few times in frustration, saying: “come on now, are we going to do this or not?”. So we kept going, he had the LOWEST rail on the course down, the a-jump in the triple combination, but managed to get through and over the b and c jumps. After 10 or 11 jumps (which is more the normal length of a course), Mango thought we were done, that he had jumped the last jump – I could tell by the way he relaxed and let his head down – only GP courses usually consist of 14-16 jumps (or more). As we came around a “blind” turn approaching the toughest effort on the course, the big double, I was trying my best to get Mango’s attention, to make him focus and to understand that it wasn’t over yet. About two strides out, he kind of realized it, but it was too late – he still jumped the a-jump, but from a near standstill and had the top rail down and caught it between his hind legs and dragged it with us as we landed…with only two strides to the next jump, there was just no way he was going to make it! So, while they were rebuilding the a-jump (when you have a refusal in a combination, you have to jump both/all the jumps again…) I was petting Mango’s neck, telling him it was alright, no big deal, and I was almost sure that this was the end of it, that there was no way he would jump those jumps again, after a “crash” like that…I got the signal that the course was ready and picked up a canter, to at least try. Here’s the amazing thing – Mango DID IT!! He jumped it beautifully and I just couldn’t believe it, as I was letting him gallop full out on the long stretch to the last jump, trying to make up for some of the lost time, thinking there is still a chance to be within the time allowed. We just came up way too fast to the last jump and had it down, but I did not care ONE BIT, I was totally amazed by the way Mango had handled this enormous test and showed me what a gutsy horse he was!! (and besides that, I think 80% of the riders had that last rail down…)

I think we finished in 10th or 11th place, just outside of ribbons and money, but to me, Mango had just, not only, won the status of actually being a “Grand Prix Horse”, but also got to hear from my boss that he “was PROUD of us” and his little “fan club” was ecstatic!! The cold November rain started pouring down, and as we were loading the horses in the trailer, to go home, I told my boss: “now you drive careful – we have a very special horse in that load!” :)

I am trying to finish this story – is it getting way too long already… To summarize it, I would just like to say, that I know how blessed I was by this horse, and I believe there was a reason that our paths crossed. Mango taught me many things, the biggest one I think was patience. He showed me how time and dedication can change a horse, that was considered “unfixable”. He showed me unconditional love, as he did more for me than I ever dreamed he would. He also showed me, that a good jumper doesn’t always have to be a warmblood, bred to jump – but that even a fairly unsuccessful ex-race horse can make it big on the jumper scene, even though they were “just” bred to run!

Now, when I write this, Mango is 19 years old. He is still doing great! I keep him fit, as retirement is just not his deal – he becomes very bored, just being a pasture horse. We do a lot of FUN things, like galloping and he LOVES cross country jumping. At a cross country course, NOTHING slows him down, NOTHING is intimidating to him, forget about being “picky” about any jumps (like he used to be in show jumping) – we have jumped stuff that I would have never even thought of ever wanting to jump! At a cross country course, with Mango’s huge, ground covering stride, I can just completely TRUST him and grab mane, close my eyes, and he takes care of ME!! I sometimes wish I would have done some competitive eventing with him, especially if I would have gotten him when he was younger, that would have been so much fun and he would have kicked some serious butt in the eventing world!! :) My biggest dream, still, is to be able to gallop him on a REAL race track, I hope we get an opportunity to do that, while he is still sound, fit and a happy camper. We run our “imaginary races” sometimes, by ourselves, and I believe Mango enjoys it as much as I do, or possibly even more :) I call him my “Damascus Jr.”…