Mercy Came A Runnin'

3.

One day, in late May of 2015, Sherri called up my mom and told her I needed to come try a horse she had. So of course, my mom loaded me and my saddle up and took us over to Sherri's.

When we got there, I was standing beside Sherri's trailer, waiting on her to go grab her mare she wanted to show me. I remember looking all over her property, wondering which horse she was going to go grab.

Somehow I became lost in some random daydream, as usual for me. But I was jerked out of it when Sherri walked over this gorgeous mare.

My eyes lit up. They scanned all over her amazing flea bitten coat. I was stunned by how entrancing she was.

"This is Mercy." Sherri spoke while grabbing a brush out of her tack room. She handed me the brush and let me brush Mercy off.

I was in love.

Once I got Mercy all brushed off, I led her into the barn to saddle her. She was in season and acting mareish towards a gelding in the stall near her.

I had a difficult time throwing my saddle on her, as she was so much taller than I was used to.

I remember having to loosen my cinch because it wouldn't nearly reach the other side of her. She wasn't fat at all, she was just a huge horse.

Once I had her saddled, Sherri brought over her bridle, she unbuckled it and told me to be careful when putting it on her, as she did NOT like her ears being touched.

I very carefully put on her tie down then her bridle, making sure not to touch her ears. I couldn't help but wonder why she didn't like her ears being touched. To this day I still don't know why.

Sherri told us how her previous owners couldn't figure out her issue with her ears. She was never abused. They even had her knocked out by the vet for them to check, but there was no physical issues. It may have annoyed them, but I always saw it as her personal little quirk, and it was cute.

Once Mercy was all tacked up, we walked out into the arena. I climbed up onto her and we walked a few laps. Sherri had us trot around and lope some circles. I was amazed by how smooth she was.

Once we had warmed up, it was time to go through the pattern. Mercy was hot before we went. It had me excited. We took off for the first, a little faster than a lope, and even though we knocked it, I was amazed by how smooth and quickly she turned. Leaving the first barrel is what caught me though. She lunged out of it. She was running so much faster than I'd ever gone before and it scared me, but at the same time I was excited. We turned the second and third with ease, and slowed up going home.

The run had me out of breath. All I could think was how amazing she was. We knocked a barrel but it didn't change how amazed I was by her. The cover photo of this chapter is from that run.

We kept going through the pattern again and again, because we couldn't end the day with a knocked barrel. We knocked the first barrel time after time. Sherri taught me how I needed to give her more of a pocket to get to the barrel, as she was larger and needed more space than little old Coco did. We also lengthened my stirrups because she was so much taller than Coco.

Mercy had me changing up all of my tack! It was so new and exciting. I will never forget that day. Our first day together. From brushing her to cooling her down after our ride. All of it was so special to me.