Brillante - A History

I realized that I never really went fully into detail about my horses. I'll start off with Brillante since we've had her longer. Her nickname's Brie, and that's what I've been calling her throughout all of my posts.
I got Brillante when I was in 7th grade. I was not too thrilled about her. I was never the girl that asked for a horse on her Christmas list (I always asked for a cat), and I was under pressure because I was trying to get into one of the most prestigious selective enrollment schools in Chicago. How could I focus on school when I was trying to take care of a horse?!

Anyways, we found Brie by accident at a horse fair up in Northern Illinois. We were already looking into share-boarding a horse in a place I can only describe as "the middle of nowhere" because I can't recall where it was. My mom was looking for hunter/jumper horses, just to see if she could convince my dad to buy one, but as we watched the breed demonstration, my dad was immediately smitten with Brie and sought her out right after she left the arena. Just a three year-old, everyone told us not to buy her, she was too "green", she'd hurt us kids (my brother and I). But my dad was sold on the idea of his horse and his kids growing up together (and keeping us out of the malls doing absolutely nothing on Saturday afternoons).

So now we have this horse. What do we do with her? And what the heck is a Paso Fino? Why did we buy this instead of an Arabian? Completely dazed and confused, my mom attempted to implement the methods of training Arabians she learned when she was a youngster, mucking stalls in return for one 30 minute lesson. Brie wasn't loving that too much, until one day, the trainer (who we originally mistook for the owner), our beloved Andre, asked us "What the heck are you doing? And why do you have that 50 ft rope?!" He rode Brie for us, like he did in the horse fest, and we wanted him to train. To make a long story short, the real owner of the stable we were at wanted Andre exclusively for himself and we had to leave to another stable.

Without naming names, that new stable was a DUMP. But we had to stay there since it was close to Andre's house and he had to do something with Brillante and teach us what to do with her since we had no clue. What turned out to be a 3 month deal turned into a long-lasting (until recently) friendship that remained even when things went completely downhill with the stable. In retrospect, we did a lot of stupid things with Brie that could have gotten us killed. For example, I remained on her after a day of full-on rears (which is actually kind of impressive). We started looking for new places when Brie's sweet demeanor turned nasty and she became extremely head-shy. The final straw? We up and left one day after we walked in only to find huge bite marks along Brie's neck line and chest. We still don't know what they were to this day (rats? a wasp? cigarette burns?).

Off we went to our third stable where another trainer was, Juan. We didn't hire him because by then we thought we knew enough to work with Brie on our own, and we did fairly well. Time at this stable is really a blur, and all I remember is that Paco worked there (that's where we met him) and that the owners of the stable we're currently at were there as Juan's clients. Things were okay for a while, then immediately went downhill and we left back to where we started, the stable where Brie was born up in Northern Illinois.

Things were peaceful, quiet. The place was really beautiful, light and airy. It was more rustic and beautiful that I remembered. While back at her "home", Brie had an encounter with laminitis. We caught it early enough, thankfully, and Andre was living on the property so he was there to give her medication everyday. It was then that we found out that Brie is insulin resistant and can't be getting apples everytime we go out or a multitude of cookies or an excess of grain. There was no rotation and we really lucked out with that one, and now we're vigilant about her weight and what she eats.
Aside from the chill in the winter, it was paradise. But since the owner died and his wife was too depressed by running the business without him, so she sold it, and we packed up and left to the stable we're currently at.

So this ended up being a not-so-short history of Brie's moves and medical condition. I was going to post more about her attitude and things I'm trying to work with her on but I'll save that for another post, coming soon.