How we got here...

I bought Apollo a year ago, almost to the day. I was 31 and returning to riding after a 3 or 4 year hiatus. I was looking for an event prospect and found Apollo. He was, and still is, a gorgeous chestnut with a laid-back attitude. He had light movement and my mind immediately pictured us winning on our dressage score. He had super balanced gaits which I knew would help me become a much better rider in stadium. He was 6 years old at the time, unraced and solidly jumping 2'6" courses. He was ready for something serious. Though he had no cross country experience, none of the horses I was considering did. Any one of the 3 would be a crapshoot. I picked Apollo because he was the furtherest along in his training and looked to have the most raw talent.

Flash forward one year and I'm ring side at the Devon Horse Show watching Apollo jump an amazing round during the Saturday night Hunt Team class. Huge crowd, load speakers, bright lights, center stage. Apollo ate it up and threw down the most professional round of his life. This is the arena he was meant for - far from the loneliness of the cross country course. It just took me a year to realize it.

In the past year, Apollo has been cross country schooling about a dozen times. Success was varied, but his resistance to the entire experience put doubt in my heart from the start. I thought I could resolve the issues with training, so I focused on flatwork and jumping exercises that would increase his responsiveness to my leg and improve my ability to control his rhythm and stride.

His jumping improved enormously. He was always good, but he got brave and forward. He looked for his fences and jumped his heart out in the ring. I could trust him to help me out when I made a mistake. Because he didn't require perfection, riding him was fun and I found myself improving at the same rate. But that horse disappeared whenever we went out onto a cross country course.

I've given up trying to understand how his heart could be in one place, but not the other. But it became painfully obvious that he would not become my event horse, so I put him up for sale. He will be the first horse I have ever sold and it is a hard concept for me to grasp. I may be an adult, but I am still a horse crazy girl who falls in love with these animals so easily.

Now seeing him perform at Devon, I am confident I am making the right decision. That is his world and he deserves to be in it.