Within 30 minutes, he was standing perfectly still in the middle of the arena, allowing me to share with the audience what my approach had been and how we went from an anxious bundle of nerves to a sleepy and relaxed looking horse in less than an hour of work.  Deep down, I knew he had unique potential, and it was one of those moments where I was sad that I couldn’t take him home to continue working with him.

Fast-forward a year later, Kate(my wife and fiancé at the time) were driving across the country to move back home to Montana from South Carolina.  We hadn’t even made it out of South Carolina yet, and I got a phone call from Indigo’s owner.  She heard that I was moving home and wanted to talk with me about where he was at in his training.  Given that her confidence wasn’t the most given that she’d come off of him a couple of times, she brought up the idea of selling him and was hopeful that I would be interested since my demonstration a year earlier had been so successful.  Of course I was over the moon about the idea, and we made a deal before the conversation was over. 

I would go on to work with Indigo for the next 15 years, achieving the highest level of Liberty I have achieved with any horse, along with learning how to jump with him.  He had natural springs in his legs, and never once balked at a jump.  He took great care of me in that regard, and taught me how to maintain my balance in a jumping saddle while setting him up for a jump through the length of his strides well before the approach rather than last minute corrections right before take off.  He caused me to fall in love with jumping because he was such a natural.  The feeling of grace and power all wrapped up into one brief moment was extremely special to me when we were jumping, and I’ll be forever grateful for the memories he gave me and the knowledge he helped me learn about the sport of jumping.