Meet Murphy

I first saw Zarr Bars Missy when I was a volunteer at the horse races in Kamloops, BC.  If I recall correctly, she was entered in a dash of 450 yards and was being led to the paddock by her trainer who was involved in what seemed to be an in-depth conversation with one of his grooms.  Considering the fact that she was entered in a race and on her way to the paddock she ws incredibly calm.  The trainer had her bridle reins draped over his arm and seemed to take very little notice in her at all.  She was calm and quiet in the paddock and so totally not stupid on post parade that I was impressed.  She was very close to getting her Register of Merit, Race and needed a couple more wins to do it and boy, did she ever that day.  Calm, cool, and collected being loaded in the gate, she exploded out of there when they sprung the latch.  She ended up getting her R.O.M. that year and I didn't see her again. 
Fast forward a couple of years and I was with my then boyfriend, Bruce, at his friends' place in Kelowna, the Zarrs.  Their unusual last name struck me and I commented on the fact that I had watched the mare race and the wife asked me if I wanted to see her.  Lo and behold, there she was, the very same horse that I had watched run and figured that would be one to 'go to the hills on' as dad would say.  Somehow or other, Bruce got to negotiating with the Zarrs and bought that horse for me and that was the start of the longest lasting relationship of my life (no, not with Bruce!)
After her foal was weaned we went to pick her up and brought her back to Kamloops.  I ended up putting her over at a friend's place who had an arena and round pen and spent a couple of weeks doing what I called 'lead and feed'.  Go catch her, bring her in and feed her and groom her and then turn her back out.  While I was doing that I ran in to her old trainer and asked him if he had any problems with her.  His response?  Just that she had a thing for bucking off gallop boys.  All righty then. 
We had been getting along pretty well so far and I thought it was time to saddle her and put her in the round pen.  She did so well when I tacked her up and took her to the round pen and sent her around at a trot that I wished that I had worn my boots so I could just step up on her.  Right about that time she dropped her head and bucked.  Hard.  Man, did she crack!  And then as fast as it happened, it stopped.  Ok, now I know what I've got myself in to.
We went that way for about a week and of course, all of my friend's buddies laughed at me and figured I was scared of her, but how could I be scared of a horse that was so sweet to deal with on the ground?  The next thing we did was graduate to the larger round pen and when I took her in there the first time, she did the very same thing that she had been doing all along except this time there was a twist; as soon as she was finished getting what I called her ya-yas out, she perked her ears up and walked right over to me.  The rest, as we say, is history.  Any time I rode her after that the first thing that I did was tie up the bridle reins and turn her loose to do her thing.  As soon as she was done she'd perk her ears up and walk right over to me as if to say "That was fun, now what?". 
All of the 'cowboy' buddies of course had solutions to get ehr to stop that, but why bother?  We got along.  Why Murphy?  I don't know if you're old enough to remember the sit com Murphy Brown with Candace Bergen, but she had a sense of humor just like Murphy Brown.  She'd buck you off when you weren't paying attention and then come back to you and laugh!  On the advice of my dressage coach (yes, I was taking dressage lessons on a Quarter Horse) I tried to ride her without letting her do it a couple of times and did not have any fun at all.  She threw her head up, jigged along and would not relax. 
'Course the dressage lessons only came after a couple of years of walk-trot, stop, back up.  Because the only thing that she had ever known was run, we didn't even lope.  Lots of time, patience and love went in to her.