The Baseline

Cosmopolitan V is a 2005 bay American Warmblood filly by Crescendo V out of a TB mare, Olive Me xx. She has a big fat head, a small crescent star, a right hind sock with ermine spots, and plenty of personality. She has a big, kind eye, and no idea what's going on.

My mom and I went to look at her (and some other beautiful horses) on the advice of my vet, and fell in love with this eye-catching, excellently put together filly about two weeks ago. We watched her go, and she has dynamite movement. The next weekend, I rode her. We got along great, so we called up a vet and got her examined. After everything checked out, we mailed a check and shipped Cosmopolitan V to her new home at Briarwood Farm in Readington, NJ.

I go to school at Drew University in Madison, NJ and keep my other horse at Briarwood as well. He's an 11-year-old chestnut OTTB (off the track Thoroughbred) named Dude. We do the level 3 jumpers, and he has made it fairly clear that he is not comfortable jumping much higher, which is the cause of buying Cos"Mo"politan.

The first comment I got about her was from the shipper. When he called to tell me he was on the way, he said "Where did you find this horse? She's so sane for a 3-year-old, and beautiful! Looked at the trailer for a minute and then jumped right in. Hasn't made a sound the whole way."

She stepped off the trailer the same way: relaxed (all things considered), alert, and more or less calm. I can't ask much more of a three-year-old that just traveled two hundred+ miles, the longest trailer haul of her life. I brushed her off, bonded, and tucked her into her new stall.

From BWF I planned to go home for the 4th of July weekend. Half an hour into the four hour drive, I got a call from one of the instructors at Briarwood named Jess.

"So I'm staring at your horse because she just got her foot stuck in the window."

Great.

"Don't worry, she's fine, just a little scraped up. She doesn't want to put weight on it but I'm going to walk her around." Turns out she was sleeping, and when she tried to get up she decided it would be a good idea to climb up the wall. She put her foot through the window grate and kicked it out in her adventure of righting herself. Fortunately she is still barefoot, or else the damage probably would have been much worse.

I was gone for the weekend, but Jess called me the next day to say Mo was sound and the leg hadn't even swelled.

My dad and I drove back Saturday evening before a horseshow Sunday to ride both Dude and Mo. This was the first time Mo had been out in a few days, but she was pretty chilled out about it. We walked and trotted in one of the show rings with all the fancy jumps set up, stared at stuff, snorted at other stuff, and scooted around some more stuff. For her third day on the farm, she took everything remarkably well.

When it came to the canter, she really wanted no part of it and would much rather curl up into a ball in a series of rolling play-bucks. Persistence got her to pick up a nice canter for half the ring, and I called it quits with that.

Next day was the show. Dude was magnificent and was first and second in his level 3 classes. Mo wasn't too sure what was going on with the whole show thing, but she did her best to put on her big girl pants and roamed around like a champ. We watched some big eq and decided that when another horse smacks a rail it is very frightening. We also wandered around one of the schooling rings and realized that tents are evil and the jump crew is secretly a pack of wolves.

I didn't ask her for much, just straight, forward walking and a few straight lines of trot. She dropped down into a nice frame for some of it, but mostly she was a giraffe checking out the scenery.

Trying to get her into the wash stall was tough. She grew roots and decided she was perfectly happy in the aisle, thanks, couldn't I untack her there? No, I told her, there's too much going on in the aisle and you're going to freak when some little kid pokes your butt. We discussed this for quite some time, but whenever I would move to pull her off balance for a step forward, she countered with a step backwards.

Ok. Fine. I stood in the wash stall, and she stood outside of the wash stall. I was thinking about how to coax her to come with me and turn around -- not even get wet! just stand! -- and held my hand out to her. She looked interested, but made no move. I asked her to: "Cmon, Mo, you've gotta get in here."

She looked at me, looked at my hand, and took a step into the wash stall, no pulling, no walking, no bullying. A little surprised, I took a step back. She followed. From there out it was smooth sailing: we walked in, turned around, and stood for about thirty seconds before I gave her lots of praised and a cookie and pulled off her tack.

Mo has good muscling, but a little too much under her neck for my liking. She's a bit butt-high at the moment, probably 15.3 at the withers and 16.0 at the hip, and has a big ol' head to grow into. She's beautiful, though, and very sweet. She loves to drag her nose in the dirt to make snot-mud and then share it with me.

Hunter? Jumper? Who knows? She's got the movement for a hunter, but I'd love a jumper. We'll see what direction she wants to take.

She'll get tomorrow off, and Tuesday there'll be another update. Maybe with pictures! I know my dad took some.