Senior Marry Tanner graduates early to pursue her dreams of competing with horses

A 6-year-old Mary Tanner sits in the back seat of a blue suburban waiting patiently, her eyes fixated on the winding road ahead. The Tanner’s are on their way to Florence, Oregon for a typical family get together. As always, they’ll see relatives, exchange pleasantries, go out to dinner, hit the beach…rinse and repeat.

But Mary can’t wait to see someone who’s not a blood relative. Tango. He’s not a family member, but rather a horse she sees each time she visits. Each trip, Mary drags the family to the beach for some $60 pony rides. The rides are her favorite part of the trip. This is where she first really felt a connection with a horse.

It’s been months since she was last in Florence but she still remembers Tango. She recalls his characteristic mannerisms – his brown and white fur and his slow movement. She laughs every time she thinks about him. In her mind, Tango’s a less than fitting alias for the somewhat drab horse.

As the family arrives and unpacks, says hello and stretches their legs, Mary already persists that it’s time to see her pal. Her brothers roll their eyes, only wanting to ride go-carts, and not go on horses yet again. They’ve done it so many times it’s practically second nature to them.

When it comes time to go, Mary’s brothers are disconnected from their horses, just trying to enjoy the ride. They go out of the barn, through the forest and onto the beach just like they have year after year. But Mary rides up and down the beach for what seems to be hundreds of times. Down and back, down and back. Eventually, sunlight deprives her from any more rides.

The rest of her family trudges home, happy to be off to sleep. But Mary’s already thinking about Tango. Wanting to ride again.

***

Ever since her freshman year when she enrolled at White Fox Stables, Mary has been a deeply competitive horse jumper. Mary graduated early after the first semester of her senior year to pursue riding horses.

She is currently finishing up school online and traveling around the nation, competing in horse shows. Division 1 horse riding may be a possibility next year but she is still undecided due to many different factors.

“I don’t really know at this point, “ Mary said. “I’m still deciding.”

Mary has done jumping competitions since she first started horse lessons as an 11-year-old girl at C&M horse stables. As she’s gotten older the competitions have become more serious and required more traveling. She’s regularly won competitions since she’s started.

Mary has received so many ribbons they are placed into a makeshift tupperware trophy case under her bed. The box consists of what Mrs. Tanner estimates to be upwards of 400 blue, silver and bronze ribbons. Immediately following a competition, the fresh ribbons are carefully placed onto the fridge to display for the family. After a week, new ribbons come in, the old ones go to the bin. It’s a process.

“She always kept those ribbons that I never cared for,” Mary said. “For my mom they were always a big thing.”

***

As a 3-year-old girl Mary’s mom bought Mary her very first toy Bryer horse. These miniature animals are basically the horse equivalent of a Barbie doll. Mary loved them.

She asked for stables, barns, accessories and anything else she could get her hands on. She liked to pretend they were her own horses, caring for them.

As she got older, ponies were swapped for larger horses. As an 11-year-old, she was put  in a camp in Oklahoma City after seeing it once on a vacation and thinking it looked like fun. The camp introduced her to jumping. After this, the next step was to have her mom sign her up for horse lessons.

“[To convince my mom to sign me up for horse lessons] took like a year,” Mary said. “I just kept bugging her about it.”

Mary looked forward to the lessons her mom signed her up for at C&M stables. Most girls her age treated the practices like a new toy – going for a few weeks then recklessly abandoning them altogether. But Mary continued to go week after week.

Her first horse was named Bill. She instantly felt a connection with the steed. At the annual Halloween show that the stables put on, she dressed him up with a big bow-tie and a top hat.

She said it was her date.

In Mr. Peterson’s sixth grade class at Westwood View Elementary, she would write “I love Bill” all over her folders. The teacher found out and was concerned. There was no Bill in the class.

He ended up calling Dana at home warning her of this. She responded with laughter, replying, “Mr. Pete, it’s a horse!”

This was when everyone around Mary knew this love of horses was more than just a fad. She really felt something for them. Whether they be Bill, Tango or even a doll.

***

At C&M stables, a Kansas City area ranch, horses essentially belonged to each girl. They were property of the stables but each one was legally rented out to the riders. Mary loved and cared for the horses she had here, but she still never had her own.

When she started up at White Fox Stables at the beginning of her freshman year, she was still a renter. She had Deb, Bonnie, Sherlock and even one named Frog, and they were each different in their own ways. Mary treated them like they were her own.

One morning during the summer of 2007, Mary was called up by her trainer Julie Pinkering to come up to White Fox. Julie said she had a horse named Skippy and she was from Florida. She said she was a little rough.

It didn’t make a difference to Mary. She was mesmerized by the horse’s brown, flowing hair and great size. Just as Mary was about to leave, Julie informed Mary that if she wanted her, she was all hers.

“It was her horse,” Dana said. “She went out there every weekend, she could have the trainer look after him for a couple days, but she didn’t want the trainer to take care of her horse, so she went out every day.”

Skippy was classified as having “poor ground manners.”  When she would be taken out on the course, she would often abruptly stop right before making her ascent on a jump, jolting Mary off the horse entirely.

And the kicker: the horse had a debilitating habit of sticking its tongue out on rides. When other girls would ask her about her horse, they’d often respond with, “Oh the one that sticks its tongue out?”

“I had seen the horse in Iowa with her because we went to an Iowa show,” Dana said. “They were trying to explain to me who this horse was that’d be good for Mary, and [Mary] was always talking about her, and I was like, ‘Not the one with its tongue out?”

But for all the flack Skippy put Mary through, she turned out to be a good horse. Mary had acquired many outside of school friends through horse riding and nearly all of them have since dropped out from horse riding due to their “easy to ride” horses. Skippy, however, was tough.

Mary moved up to jumping four feet five inches, from her beginning height of two feet six. Once she shifted in height and really started to contend in competitions, she talked to her counselor Laurie Lamb and realized college horse riding was a possibility.

All because of a horse that stuck its tongue out.

***

Skippy acted as another trainer for Mary, helping her get better times and higher jumps in her competitions. The most devastating moment in her career was when she tragically lost him.

Skippy had sprained its ankle and reached a level where it couldn’t put any weight on its right foot. They felt it was time to take the horse out of town and have it checked. The doctor said Skippy had cartilage damage in the right foot. He would need surgery.

Before the procedure began, the doctor called Mary, asking for permission to put Skippy down if he felt it was necessary. Earlier that week they’d gotten a 75 percent chance of the horse gaining its athletic ability back. How could it be?

They immediately told him to stop. They wanted to spend more time with him. Maybe the last time they’d ever spend with him.

“He just looked beautiful,” Dana said. “He was a gorgeous horse.”

About halfway through the surgery, the cartilage began to fall apart. They were going to have to put him down.

A white sheet covered Skippy as he lied on the operating table. Mary asked the doctor if she could go in. Wanting to see him one last time.