The journey that brought Cygnus into my life started with another horse. My first amateur jumper, Goose, is one of those jumpers that trainers want for all of their clients. She’s brave but careful, smart, fast, and has a heart of gold. She took me from my first 1.20m class to pinning in my first grand prix. I’ve always loved working with green horses, so it wasn’t a large leap for me to consider breeding my super-mare. After three years and many stallions, it became apparent that Goose had other ideas about being a mother.
Heart-broken and discouraged, I decided to enjoy the horse I have and to worry about finding my next jumper later. I was a few years out of school and going through the rough period when your parents cut off your horse bills and you learn the true pain of show bills, training bills, veterinary bills and all the rest. The thought of buying a jumper of Goose’s caliber to continue my riding career was out of the question, and I saw my chances to continue in the sport of showjumping as having few options.
It was two weeks after I decided not to continue my pursuit to breed Goose that I was scrolling through Facebook and saw an ad for the De Wolden Summer Sale, a young horse auction in the Netherlands. Like any horse-crazy human, I stopped scrolling to admire the collection of foals going to the auction. The last one, a cute rose grey, caught my attention, so I clicked on his photo to learn more. As fate would have it, his mother was by my favorite stallion, Numero Uno, and his father was Goose’s brother. Here was my dream baby, everything I had tried and failed to breed myself.
From there, I spoke about buying the horse as a dream. I started talking to the folks who work the sale, with no serious intent to proceed with buying a foal at auctions from the Netherlands, because that would be a crazy thing to follow through on. It wasn’t until I was sitting at the barn, showing more pictures of the foal to the mother of a fellow amateur, when she looked at me and asked “So really, why not?”
To anyone reading this, there are a hundred good reasons why not. Bank accounts, free time as a young professional in a competitive (non-horsey) field, the fact that the foal may never jump a single fence. There’s huge amounts of risk in bringing along a young horse, both to the investment funds put up in buying and then developing the horse, as well as risk to bodily injury from being thrown by a cranky, half-broke three year old. But, my baby-crazy mind said “Yeah, why not?” and it was history.
I won Cygnus at auction after an intense over-the-phone bidding war (which my dad so kindly conducted on my behalf). One month later, he was on a plane to Los Angeles, and two days after that he was happily munching hay on my parents’ farm. He is one of the smartest horses I’ve encountered in my twenty years of riding horses. He’s bold, fearless, athletic, playful, and full of sass. I’m an amateur jumper who has ridden the same saint-horse for seven years and has never even sat on a three year old before. I hope you enjoy reading the many adventures we have together as I attempt to teach Cygnus how to trot in a circle and as he teaches me a side of horsemanship that we amateurs rarely get to experience in our modern sport.
