I got my first pony when I was 2. My first pony’s name was Shorty, named after my Uncle Shorty Parks. He was a 38-inch sorrel with the prettiest cream tail (his tail was 56 inches long and my mom always kept it up in a braid). Shorty was in his mid-20s by the time he became mine. That’s basically a 100-year-old pony in human years.
My mom drug my dad all over trying to find me the perfect first pony and Shorty fit the bill. My mom bought him out of a 40×40 lot that sat on a 1/2 acre with a house. My mom picked Shorty because he had previously fractured a front leg that didn’t heal properly so he wasn’t going to go anywhere fast, and my mom figured Short would be the perfect fit for 2-year-old me. We say around here you can’t take the “p” out of a pony, but with Shorty his “p” stood for perfect.
There wasn’t much I couldn’t do with Shorty; I rode him barefoot in my saddle with either a tiny hackamore or halter with a lead rope tied to it. I gave the barn cats rides while I rode him around and even ponied him while I drove my Barbie Jeep around. He was the definition of “Bomb Proof”.
While my mom and Dad would give lessons to our 4H group, I’d been on Shorty riding around. There were many times too that I would get done riding and just get off and he’d stay saddled until an adult could pull his saddle. He was even hauled to an open show once when I was 3 years old and I showed him in the Showmanship sweepstakes. The judge that day was Kelly Boles Chapman- we have that on a VHS my mom won and I got 2nd that day.
I had him 3 years before his previously fractured leg really started to really bother him and laying down and getting up started to get really difficult for him, so he went to greener pastures. Shorty was laid to rest next to one of our good roping horses that had also been a Stepping Stones Therapeutic program horse.
Everyone deserves a special pony like Shorty.
– Caiti Gordon