BY ANN LIVINGSTON
Mel understood the partnership—one we all universally sense as kids on that pony first ride.
You are going to help me feel braver, and I’m going to take good care of you.
He also got the implicit assignment we whisper to them when we get older.
You make me feel 12 again.
22 years ago, I was looking for something interesting and fun to ride. I viewed a video of a 3-year-old Appaloosa with a big soft trot, colored reddish with a blanket like some light snow fell on him. I bought him off that video, a decision I never even once doubted.
Mel (Times R EZ) trained himself. All I did was ride him, and he got a bit better every day. Jumping, lead changes, he just did them. Let’s try this today, and there it was.
I took baby Mel to his first horse show, a local 4H type show. We were in a ring full of horses, and a firecracker went off nearby. Horses skittered here and there. Mel never flinched, and I knew I had a show buddy.
My memories of Mel come with warm memories of friends. Isn’t that part of our journey with our horses? Do they not lead us out of our private lives? No doubt the world’s first horse event was because someone thought, I am so proud of my horse, and I want to be around others who are proud of theirs.
At another very early show, my braver friend. I got on, and he felt too fresh. “Go get your chaps,” I said to her. So off she went, but by the time she returned, Mel was his at-home self. So I rode and my friend, not minding the never-mind, laughed her easy laugh. Thereafter, Mel was never not his at-home self, wherever the adventures I pressed him into.
Mel had zero spook. There was only one thing he did not like, and I mean—he really did not like. Jump poles just outside an arena fence. He must have thought they were very straight snakes or something. When he saw those, he spun me off twice. His spin tracks in the sand were so amazing that I took pictures of them. When I whined about another horse being bratty, my trainer teased that Mel was the one who got me off, so why was Mel my favorite?
Can this thank you letter to him possibly answer that?
Mel and I did the Appaloosa shows for a while. The people were fun, and I learned lots—especially about tails. This was before fake tails made their way to the USEF world. But when we went to a USEF show, I wanted Mel to practice wearing his fake tail. Back then, we looked odd cantering around with a great big tail. And of course it fell off, because it turns out that I was the one who needed practice… tying them in. Mel strode on and got a good ribbon anyway.
Mel held his own at the local hunter/jumper shows. An Appaloosa ambassador, both of us turned deaf ears to multitudes of bad Appaloosa jokes. He proved himself when a temporary tent at the in-gate blew over just as Mel and I were on course coming around that corner. When most horses would have melted down, he just cantered a few steps sideways. We won the class, and that judge won my heart when she showed how to look past an understandable misstep.
But it was his pure, inner goodness that was worth the most to me. I had breast cancer surgery in 2010 and worried that my body would be weird for riding. With bulky bandages still on, I clambered on Mel. Of all my horses, I trusted him the most. My photo of that moment reminds me that things usually turn out better than you expect. Or as my grandpa used to say, most of my worries never came true.
And that was a part of Mel’s and my life together, the peace and calm he gave me to reflect on things.
If Mel had bratty moments, I don’t recall them. Who would not want that said about them? What I recall is a sweet, kind guy who made me sense beauty. I think about looking out at my pasture and my pretty Mel. Brushing that snowy reddish mix of haircoat and wondering which patch of white versus red was the best mix.
Most of all, I thank him. For all the years we rode together, I always got off happier than when I got on.
RIP Mel 2001 – 2026.
Ann Livingston is a patent attorney and horse farm girl, and a rider for most of her 73 years. Over the years as an adult re-rider, she stepped up to the A/Os and stepped down to 2′ and has loved every minute of it. She lives on a small horse farm in Texas, and will tell you that horses make her brain able to focus on work, and work makes her able to have horses.
