Romeo Part 2

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Lots of jumping = day off for Romeo. I have no idea if anyone will take interest in my blog, other than family and friends: but just in case someone that doesn’t know us stumbles upon it on the interweb, I thought I should take this opportunity to tell you a bit about me, my family and of course, Romeo. 

My name is Julie Maner and I live on a 200-acre farm in Maryville, Tennessee. I am a 1966 model and happily married to the love of my life, Richard. We have four children. Sarah, the oldest, is married and she and her husband live just a few miles from our home with our adorable, almost three-year old grandbaby, Presley. Stephanie and her husband aren’t too far away, living in Atlanta.  Our 24-year-old son Joshua is currently living in Maine trying to find his passion and our youngest, Emily is a sophomore at the University of Tennessee.

Stephanie, Richard, Emily, Sarah, Nicole
Joshua and me

Until Emily, I was a soccer mom equipped with great chairs and of course, a mini van. Emily claims that at age seven, I offered her a deal; If you take a week long art camp, you can take one riding lesson. I really have no recollection of this but we will trust her. Unofficial Daughter Nicole worked as a barn hand where Emily took lessons. She ended up moving in with us, completing vet school, got married and is now considered one of our own.  Erika Adams, my coach, is an Advanced/3*** rider.  Emily has been a student and member of Erika’s eventing team, The Road Less Traveled, for over five years. 

Around age 11, Emily took a strong interest in eventing. We were able to lease a seasoned eventer. Although, they never competed, he was certainly showing her the ropes and taking great care of her. Tragically, he was involved in an accident here on our farm and had to be put down. So the search for a new partner began. Emily inundated us with postings from every conceivable horse sales website.  There was one horse that really caught her eye. A 12-year-old OTTB, Prepster: barn name, Romeo. He was everything I didn’t want. He was gray. He was huge. He was too expensive and although his owner, Jennifer (now part of our extended family, as well) was creative with her words, I got the sense he wasn’t always honest at the jumps.  To top off my trepidation, they lived in Indiana! 

Emily did what she is good at; she wore us down. Before we knew it, we were on our way to see this horse that only checked one or two of my boxes.  It was a dreary day and I was skeptical as Jen saddled him up. Did she just say something about an old bow? Why are we here?  We proceeded to a round pen where Em happily hopped on to try him out. He won’t get soft: that’s not good. Good gosh, he’s huge.  You could tell Richard liked him. He was big and flashy. Guys like that sort of thing! Getting frustrated, because he wasn’t doing exactly what I wanted, I started watching Jen. She was interviewing us and asking us as many, if not more, questions about our intentions; farm and pasture conditions, buyback agreements, trainers etc. She must really like this dude. 

Our first meeting

We abandoned getting on the bit and moved on to jumping. No signs of hesitation. He jumped everything willingly. Maybe it’s not really a big problem… The last test was to send her out into an open field, accompanied by no one and leaving his pasture mates behind. The horse never thought twice about it. I could see Em and this giant horse cantering through the fields. She’s probably pretending she’s a beautiful Indian princess...uh oh. 

We discussed price and Jen was more negotiable than I thought she would be. She likes us. She offered a one-month trial as long as she could bring him down and approve of the farm. You mean I don’t have to drive back to Indiana to get him? How could I argue with that? You can figure out the rest. We bought Romeo. He and Em hit the eventing circuit. After a fairly short stint at beginner novice they stalled out at novice. Refusing was a problem. Dressage was a problem. Arg. If nothing else, Romes was teaching her how to ride and she was learning lots. This wasn’t going to be easy. 

Waiting for his pre-purchase exam

During our one-month trial

While all of this was going on, I decided I needed a horse: not to event but to follow Em around at schoolings and lessons. Again, Em picked out a cute, OTTB, bay with a great upward confirmation. His name was Contender: barn name, Loki. Isn’t Loki a bad guy in the Avenger movies?  He had been purchased for a nine-year old.  If I nine-year-old can ride him, surely to goodness I can too. We went to check him out. There was nothing too impressive about him. He certainly wasn’t 16.1 but that’s ok. He would suit my purposes. Unfortunately, the price wasn’t very negotiable so we packed up and went home.  We kept looking. Everything was too much money, too far away or too green. Loki kept coming back into the conversation. For a $500 difference, I’ll take the cute guy that hasn’t tried to kill the little girl…that we knew of! This time, Erika accompanied Em and me to West Virginia to see him. She liked what she saw and Loki came home with us. 

Refer to the Sunday, August 27 blog entry: That was the day everyone discovered how much talent Loki could potentially have. Em started riding him a bit more. He was fun and he was ever so happy to jump anything she put in front of him. Refusing a jump never even crossed his mind.  Emily was in! I can't blame her. As I am learning, trust issues can really mess with your confidence. Before heading to Kentucky Classique the summer of 2014, Romeo was showing signs of lameness. Withdrawal deadlines were well behind us. What could we do? With a twinkle in her eyes, Em suggested we drop divisions and she ride Loki. You’ve got to be kidding me! The guy had never ridden a test, jumped a stadium course or officially schooled cross-country. It was a crazy idea. What would he do? I’m certain he hadn’t been exposed to such an environment since his racing days. We weren’t convinced Romes wouldn’t rebound but decided to take Loki along anyway, just in case. Of course, Romeo went from bad to worse and Loki stepped up to the plate and not only hit the ball but knocked it out of the park.  They finished on their dressage score with a very respectable 9th placing. I’m quite certain Emily was the only rider wearing a cross-country vest during her stadium ride but SAFETY FIRST!!!!

Back at home, I knocked around on Romeo: I took a few lessons. Dang, this horse was expensive. I’m never going to ride him enough to justify keeping him. So, through lots of tears, we convinced Emily she needed to let him go so that he could teach another rider how to kick while jumping! We found an awesome family in Nashville that fell in love with him immediately: We were at peace with letting him go. 

Fast forward to March 2017. My cell phone rings. Caller id says it’s Romeo’s owner. My heart sinks. Oh no. Something has happened to Romeo. I answered and exchanged niceties. He quickly put my fears to rest and said Romeo was fine. The barn where he was boarded had limited turnout time and Romeo was beginning to become a high maintenance horse due to his cellulitis issues. Their daughter had hurt her back and wasn’t riding much. “Would we be willing to take him back?” Oh, God yes!!! Terrified of the response, I asked how much he wanted for him.  “We want him to go home. You can have him.” With tears running down my face and sobbing like a baby, I called Richard to explain what had just happened.  If you didn’t know, you will now; I have the most awesome husband in the world. After a slight pause, he said, “Call them back and tell them we will be there tonight.” 

We called Emily who was enjoying her second semester of college. We told her we were going antiquing in Nashville and would be back the next day. At the time, we were redecorating her room.  Rich and I love to shop. It made perfect sense to her. On our way home, she and I were texting back and forth.

ME: We found a great piece!

Em: Cool. For me?

ME: Well, let’s just say it’s for both of us.

Em: OK

ME: It’s big and came out of a barn. I think you’ll like it.

Em: Cool.

ME: I say it’s gray. Dad says it’s white.

Em: Y’all are funny.

Me: It’s in pretty good shape. Just needs some TLC. Can’t wait for you to see it.

And that’s how Romeo came back into our lives.

Heels down, eyes up, leg on.
33 days to Jump Start