The hoofpick and the latch

Back in February, Sarah Minkiewicz-Breunig wrote a beautiful remembrance about a stall latch she bought when she was a young horseless girl. Although she had no real need for a latch, it represented the hope that she would someday have a stall and a pony to put in it.

That got me thinking about my own days as a young horseless girl. I started riding lessons when I was ten, and my instructor told me I needed a helmet. My parents took me to a tack shop in Burbank. We went right to the apparel section, where I spent a miserable half hour trying on helmets. Nothing fit, the salesperson was frustrated, my parents were impatient, and I ended up with a velvet hunt cap with an elastic chin strap that gave me a pounding headache and a red mark on my forehead every time I wore it.

I also got a snazzy plastic helmet cover

Before we left, I asked if I could walk around the store and look at the actual tack. In my mom's words, I wanted to touch every single thing in the store.

FYI, I'm still like that.

But anyway, I knew I didn't have a lot of time so I didn't linger at the saddles or bridles or any of the other enticing bits of leather whose purpose I could only guess at. Instead, I headed to the grooming supplies, where I found an inexpensive pot metal hoofpick. I asked my dad if I could get that, in addition to the helmet.

"Why do you need it?" he asked. "Don't they have them at the stable?"

Well, of course they did, but that wasn't the point. The hoofpick was like Sarah's latch. It represented hope and possibilities. When my horse finally came, I wanted to be ready.

The hoofpick was eventually joined by a brush, a curry comb, a grooming tote, a halter and a leadrope. Then a saddle, a bridle, a bareback pad, another bridle, a handful of bits, half a running martingale, too many saddle pads to count, more brushes, more halters, more leadropes, another saddle, another bareback pad and then - some forty two years after the hoofpick - I finally got the pony. Phew.

Of course, by then that old pot metal hoofpick had been replaced several times over. I assumed it was long gone, and stated as much on Sarah's post.

But then, a spring cleaning miracle! After our last year's basement flood, I took a bucket of old, slightly damp horse equipment to the barn and promptly forgot about it. I uncovered it yesterday in the deepest, darkest corner of my tack room. Wonder of wonders, my hoofpick was inside!

I have better hoofpicks, so instead of putting it in my grooming tote, I hung it right next to the door, so I can see it every day. It reminds me of hope and possibilities and how lucky I am to have a pony of my own.