Page 94 - Libro_MariaA_26agosto

María Alejandra Ramelli

Melissa Tovar Foto

Melissa is an ama-
teur dressage rider.
She has been a rider
for more than fifteen
years, and competes
in national shows.

“I called my first
horse Romeo. We met
at La Tranquera when
I arrived from my ex-
change in Scortland. I
had ridden there for several years, and my dad had promised to buy me a
horse as soon as I came back from my exchange. When I went back to La
Tranquera, my trainer asked me to ride a beautiful six-year-old grey horse
called Huaso del Juncal. My dad told my trainer and his wife that we wan-
ted to buy a horse, and they insisted we should buy Huaso. I wanted to
try other horses, but my trainer said that Huaso was perfect for me, and I
didn’t say anything because I was afraid my dad wouldn’t buy me a diffe-
rent horse. I liked riding him, but I had a feeling he wasn’t the right horse
for me. We didn’t pay for a vet-check because my trainer and his wife were
very good friends of us, and we thought that paying for a vet-check was
completely unnecessary. The first thing I did when we bought him was
change his name to Romeo, because Huaso sounded like bone in Spanish.
I started riding Romeo every day, but things never went well. I didn’t feel
comfortable with him, and I had a very strange feeling whenever he was
bathed because he always lifted his right leg and squeezed it as if he was
making tension. As nothing was working out with Romeo, I decided to
move to Lindaraja and ride with Omar Gomez. Nevertheless, I couldn’t
solve my problems there either. I kept falling off in the ninety-nine percent
of shows because my horse refused to jump, and after so many falls, I
started getting afraid to jump. One day, Omar told me to call a vet because
everything Romeo was doing wasn’t normal. Indeed, Romeo’s bones and
joints were hurting a lot, and the vet said his pain had no cure. The best
we could do for him was leaving him forever on a farm. After that terrible
first experience, the best tip I can give to anyone thinking about buying a
horse is that no matter who the former owner is, you should always pay
for a good vet-check to make sure the horse is healthy.”

108