I was flipping through some horse books tonight looking for some inspiration and I found a really cute picture of a Shetland pony and I began to think about my first pony.  If you will look under the Horse Breeds section, you will find an article on Popular Ponies.  This article is about the two most common pony breeds we find for children.

As a child I had one of these ponies.  I believe she was a Welsh cross, perhaps a Paint cross and ner name was Buttercup.  Yes, after The Princess Bride.  That was my favorite movie at the time, so Buttercup is an appropriate pony name for a 5 year old.  I got Buttercup because I was a rather persistant 5 year old who laid in the backseat of my grandparent's Lincoln and said, "I want a pony." over and over and over and over again.  Well, in an effort to make their only granddaughter happy, and to shut me up as well, I find myself with my first pony.

Buttercup was a fine pony.  She was a bay and white pinto and a great mount for a girl to learn on.  She put up with my consistent grooming and bathing as well as my rounds and rounds of galloping around the pasture.  We also had an annual ride on Kentucky Derby Saturday and my grandmother would take our picture next to her rose bushes to commemorate the Run for the Roses.  And we did a lot of running ourselves.  Buttercup was my riding instructor.  My grandfather had some good pointers but mostly it was given the duty of sitting in a lawn chair in the pasture to watch us run around in circles and barrel race around the bushes. 

We did find out one day that Buttercup was head shy.  I had just got a new cowboy hat and we though we would have a photo op with Buttercup wearing it.  Well, that didn't go over so well, and I ended up with a broken arm.  But, other than that we did pretty well.  It wasn't enough to keep me from riding again and as soon as I was healed we were back to running around the pasture.  I also learned how to ride my first barn sour horse, because it didn't take her long to get tired of running and she would often try and make her way back to the barn.

All in all we had a blast.  I rode Buttercup until I was 13 when a friend of my grandmother's offered to trade my the pony for a 2 year old Paint mare.  She breeds paints and pintos in Henryetta, Oklahoma.  The 2 year old was named Sesna and would become my next horsemanship challenge.  We had our own unique set of challenges, but that's for another blog on horse safety.  So, miss Buttercup went to live with some new kids who were more her size and she may be buried in a pasture somewhere in Henryetta by now or she may be still patiently letting little kids climb all over her.  Either way, I'm sure she's happy and I know that she taught a few other little kids how to ride as well.