This is Hopscotch, whom Jordyn is calling Piper.

Jordyn after school yesterday looking pretty happy with Piper.

Jordyn used Lauren’s jumper Mickey for lessons for most of this year.  Her pony, Snowboy was being leased by another rider in the barn and Mickey was filling the bill fine.  One of last year’s goals for Jordyn was to trot and she has been very successful.  She can do a posting trot now and occasionally even gets the correct diagonal.

Jordyn started riding Snow again in hopes of achieving her 2015  goal of cantering.  Snowboy, at an estimated 22 years of age, seems to have had it with hauling the little kids around.  He is still very good for a kid over 90 pounds or an adult but for Jordyn, he was taking all her energy to just keep him in a trot.

Around Christmas time we decided to sell my horse, Kalani, and find a quiet, easy pony for Jordyn.  Not to go into a whole ‘back in my day’ tirade, but one thing that is a whole lot easy now is buying a horse.  Once upon a time, you relied upon neighbors, other training barns or the classifieds to find a horse.

Facebook is now quite a source for buying and selling horses.  Within hours of stating we were on the search for a new pony, we had leads on steeds from all over the US.  The two ponies that we liked best were both on the East Coast. The one we ended up with posted a sale ad in morning, by mid-afternoon their YouTube video had over 500 views.  We had been the first to talk to this trainer in South Carolina and she called us back to tell us she had two full price offers on the pony we wanted for Jordyn.  We told her we would meet that price and buy the pony.

I have bought a couple of horses/ponies sight unseen, and not touched or ridden by us.  It is scary but it is the way of the world these days.  We all agreed, signed some papers, Paypaled (should that have one L or two?) some money and set up an inexpensive shipper.  We were pretty happy.  That was nearly two weeks ago.

The cold fell on the east coast and first the shipper couldn’t get out of New York state as the water was freezing in the water buckets of the trailer.  Then they had trouble with rain and ice as they made their way down the coast to South Carolina.  In the beginning, I figured for sure I would still be home to see the pony come, but as the days became weeks, knew I would miss out.

Sure enough, the shipper called and estimated she would be at our place sometime Sunday night/Monday morning.  As I awakened for work yesterday I figured I must have slept through the pony’s arrival.  I headed out to resume my routine of feeding the horses on my first day back at work, to have Lauren follow me out the door.  Lauren does not get up at 4:30 in the morning, especially in the cold without a compelling reason.  The pony was just arriving.

Jordyn meeting her pony for the first time! Note-it is still pitch black behind the stall slats.

Quietly and without any apprehension, the small bay pony unloaded off the big rig, walked across our pasture in the cold mist and took up her new home next to Betty Sue in the mare’s barn.  We called Ally who went to tell Jordyn that her pony had finally arrived.  Jordyn bolted out of bed, dressed quickly, brushed her teeth and begged her mom to take her to Granny’s to see the new pony.  It might have 5:30 am by then.  I was headed out to work before Jo arrived but the first picture of the two says a lot.  Jordyn’s call to me to proclaim, “Thank you, Thank you, Granny!!” said even more.

Last night, I couldn’t wait to get out to the barn, get the blanket off the pony and see what we really had.  We have had days of cold rain so a ride was out of the question but Jordyn and I had fun grooming Piper, admiring her cute face, long forelock and silky tail.

We have owned Snowboy for over ten years, I hope this pony is as good as he has been for us and earns Jo all the ribbons she deserves.  I did make it clear to her that this pony is for all the grandkids.  Piper will have a lot of master’s to serve.

Thanks for being part of our journey!

Piper settled in and having some hay.