Wednesday, May 21, 2008

My name is American Idol, but you can call me Little Boy.

Everybody here at Fox View Farm in Upperville, Virginia, calls me that because, as big and strong as I am, I'm still the smallest horse in the barn.

And, if you ask me, I'm the best.

Facts are facts, so I'm not bragging when I tell you that I was national ladies sidesaddle champion in 2006, numero uno in the whole United States. We must have been in 20 shows that year, me and my partner, Sandra Conchar. (It's pronounced CON-ker -- as in "conquer the world," which we plan to do now that she graduated from George Mason University last Saturday.) Some horses don't like to get in the trailer and go. But I'm like, "Yay! Road trip!" I mean, who wouldn't want to spend weeks at a time collecting ribbons and applause? Last year, we were No. 2 in the country.

Riding sidesaddle isn't as hard as you think. All it takes -- well, almost all -- is sitting on my back with both of your legs pressed against my left side. You can see how gracefully Sandra does it, even over jumps, if you take the Hunt Country Stable Tour this Saturday or Sunday (see box for details).

There are six farms on the tour, including one with alpacas, and some other cool stuff. You can visit a pool where horses swim to get strong, a track where they train to race and an equine research center. You can also go to a country fair at a beautiful old church and, on Saturday afternoon, watch a polo match.

The way it works is: You pick up a map when you buy your ticket, and you drive (okay, Dad or Mom drives) to the places you want to see.

I hope you'll come to Fox View. At noon and 2 p.m. both days, Sandra will put on her long skirt, saddle me up and show you what we do.

The rest of the time I'll be waiting for you to drop by the barn, where you can meet my friends Tango and Valentine and my sister, Mistress Connie. But I have the most to say, so I might tug gently on your sleeve with my teeth to get you to listen.

Here's the thing, though: When you visit, don't move the Pepsi can that sits on my stall door. I like it there. I need it there. Without it, I hang over the door and swing my head back and forth like a seasick sailor. That's called "weaving," and they say it's a sign of a nervous horse.

But let me make this perfectly clear: I am NOT nervous. I'm just very, very picky.

I don't step on cracks. I won't walk in puddles. I don't like anything out of place. (And I never knock over my Pepsi can.)

If I went to school with you I'd be the hall monitor, because I don't break rules, and I love to tattle on anyone who does. When somebody forgets to lock Tango's stall door and he opens the latch -- which he does all the time -- I raise a big, fat fuss.

My owner, Laura Cramer, uses a fancy medical term for my mental state, but she's joking. She likes her horses to have personalities. She tells us to "be who we are" because that makes us "so secure and so real."

But until Sandra arrived four years ago, nobody really knew who I was, and nobody liked to ride me.

I figured that if they made me jump the same stupid jump a billion times, I must be doing something wrong -- right? So I'd do it differently every time, and still they weren't satisfied.

Then Laura saw Sandra ride at a horse show and brought her home to me. When we jumped just right together, Sandra heard me say "I've got it!" and she let me stop. She understood that I'd do it that way for her in the show ring without drilling my legs off in practice.

That's when I told Valentine to give her a chance, and they made friends, too. He used to be one angry horse -- a guy who didn't like to work because he didn't get to play before he came to Fox View.

Now he knows he'll always do plenty of both, because once Laura decides to bring a horse home, it's forever. She said she would have kept my friend Eli -- who was pretty sick when he got here -- even if he hadn't gotten well enough to ride.

Eli's real name is Hold That Thought. He's a couple years younger than me, and he's a great big goofball, but you should see him perform. In fact, he might be the next me. I'm not ready to retire by a long shot (I'm a very youthful 14!), but when his time comes, I'll be glad to make room at the top.

-- American Idol, as told to Alison Howard