Getting Killian Part II

 I left this on a bit of a cliff hanger but of course if you follow my Instagram you know that I got Killian. It was an adventure to get her though with a lot of firsts for me so it’s still a good story.

As soon as I was reminded that Killian was an option I booked a flight since I had the benefit of following her on Instagram for over a year I didn’t need to wait on any additional videos or photos. Because the trip was eating into my already very limited budget I flew into Orlando in the morning, drove a rental car to Ocala area for a mid-day test ride, drove back to Orlando, and flew back that same evening. It was a whirlwind trip with a very early morning and a very late night but I made it. I ended up being a little late to the test ride because of a GPS error but other than that plans went smoothly.

 

I had been telling myself that Elisa Wallace certainly wouldn’t be there to show this mustang to a lowly adult amateur so when I parked, looked over and she was standing there with Meg I just about passed out. I was probably embarrassingly fangirly but Elisa is just super nice and down to earth. I walked into the barn and Killian was standing in the crossties and I think it was love at first (in person) sight. I just had this really strong “this is right” feeling in my gut the second I saw her. She was unsurprisingly a little bit standoffish (other than wanting to smile) but warmed up quickly and both Meg and Elisa mentioned that she seemed to like me which apparently hadn’t been the case with some other’s who looked at her.
 
We walked her over to the paddock that they were warming her up in and Meg hopped up and walk/trot/cantered in each direction and then I mounted up. Elisa Wallace held my sunglasses while I rode so they’re never getting washed lol. It’s always tough to get a feel of a new horse especially one that’s green and been focused on a different discipline. I was also in a full on jumping saddle and Killian is very narrow sided so I felt like my legs were swinging really badly. Even with that though we got some really nice trot in both directions and an easy canter right with a little tougher canter to the left. That checked everything off my list and then, even better, Meg opened up the gate and I rode out into their open field where they have jumps set up. 

It already seems kind of like old news but as happy as I was that we had nice w/t/c on each rein on a completely new, still green horse I was almost in tears at how steady she was when we left the paddock and went out on our little trail ride. She had a couple of good looks at things so I got to see her reaction to that sort of stuff and got to play with getting her to approach things a little. I seriously had the best time and hated to leave her but had told myself to at least sleep on it. I asked Meg if I could have until the next day and she said of course and I got back in my car to drive back to the Orlando airport.
 
That next morning I talked with a couple of friends and my wife. I asked them to challenge me and ask hard questions about whether this was the right thing and the questions weren’t that hard to answer so everyone supported moving forward. I reached out to Meg to proceed and then everything went quickly. We got a sales contract done, and moved forward with finding a trailer ride. Luckily it was spring and our local community has plenty of people that spend winters in Florida so we pretty quickly found someone who was trailering up this way, actually going further north to the border of North Dakota. We found a boarding barn parking lot where we could swap Killian into a fellow boarder’s trailer and got it all finalized.
 

The day she left I was on pins and needles. While I was glad they were making an overnight stop I was also anxious about how she would handle getting off the trailer, get handled, let herself get caught, and load back up. Now that I know her more I know how unfounded those concerns were but Mustangs can, for sure, have some tricky little quirks which I’d experienced with Niall so it was easy for me to stew a little. I got an update that she took a little bit to load that first morning but trailered well, drank and ate and unloaded without incident. It was a chilly night so they blanketed her which she also handled well. The next morning I was again super anxious made worse by the fact that I didn’t hear from them until the afternoon. They shared that she’d been pretty reluctant to load that morning, who could blame her after a full day of traveling the day before, but they were on the way and everything else was going smoothly.
 
We figured pick up would happen late in the evening and, of course, it started to rain. Killian was riding in the middle so they needed to unload a horse to get her off and, again of course, she didn’t want to get on our trailer in the dark and rain after another full day of traveling. With a little encouragement from the boarding barn owner and myself we got her loaded up though and headed home with an ETA of right around midnight. My amazing barn owner had some apt beverages for us when we got there 😊
 

She again unloaded perfectly and walked into the barn like she owned the place. Because it was still early spring for the Midwest I put her in a blanket that night and after keeping an eye on her for awhile to make sure she was eating and drinking I headed home for some well earned sleep. The next few days were eventful and included a well time saddle fitting and lot’s of getting to know her. I had a lesson at the end of that week and a show to prep for just over a month after I got her so we really packed in the eventful time for that first couple of months. I knew it was a lot early on but after so long without being able to do those things I just really needed to prove to myself that I finally could. I’m glad I did it and really exited to continue to share our journey.