YouTubers as Horses // A YouTuber FF (On Hold)

Meet the Characters - Shubble

(All drawings done by me :D)

Meet Shelby! Shelby is a 17 yo, slender Shackleford mare who has a very sweet, but also stubborn personality.

Being a Shackleford, she naturally loves the beach. She is the stable's main go-to for beach rides as she has no problem with the heat, sand, the crabs that love to spook the other horses, and she's even ok with a small jellyfish sting as long as she had fun. She was given the name 'Shelby' because if you bring her to the beach and let her run around, she will be glad to bring you lots of seashells. She will even dive in the ocean and swim with the dolphins if you let her!

She may love the beach, but she's not the most athletic horse. She can and will do lower level Cross Country, Jumping, and even Dressage. But despite being a healthy weight and being healthy overall, she's quite out of shape and too much exercise can leave her very sore. She has a very easygoing and sweet temperament, but being just over 13 hands tall (a pony), she is the stable's most problematic horse, both with ground work, and being ridden.

Unlike certain horses there, she is far too sensitive to be a beginner horse, especially for children. If the gallop up to the jump is a stride too short or too long, she'll come to a dead stop. If something spooks her, she will rear or gallop off (and she's a very skittish horse). Honestly, it's not so much that she's mean.. she just has a lot of energy, and a lot of anxiety, and is scared of everything. From chairs to tarps to balls, or even a leaf, she thinks they're all spawns of satan. Basically, she's a horse that every new kid at the barn wants to ride when they lay eyes on her because she's adorable, but when the day comes and the instructor says they get to ride Shelby.. their eyes usually go wide. Some even protest not to ride her. After all, riding lessons last an hour. And an hour is a very long time to pull on a horse's face to keep them from bolting for no reason other than the fact they just have energy, and anxiety. Not to mention all the spooking and hissy fits Shelby regularly did.

So she of course is used as a challenging horse for the intermediate to advanced rider. She helps teach more advanced riders how to stay balanced, positioned, and how to stay calm in the face of death when something spooks Shelby and she takes off running, or when they ask for a calm, collected canter and get a bouncy, out-of-control gallop. She also loves to buck, and usually not because she's being naughty or doing it as a reaction to discomfort. She literally does it for fun. She bucks more than any other horse there. She's a mare that's extremely hyper when under saddle. And beginner kids have ridden her, but only if she's bareback and on a lead rope attached to a strong bit. She's typically ridden in a basic english snaffle with Baucher bit and a standing or running martingale (to try to prevent bolting or rearing or any naughty behavior). But for trail rides or anything where she's likely to spook, she's ridden in a Barco bridle with a western shank bit, five inches long.

Overall, when she has a REALLY good rider who can handle her, she does have beautiful movements and can get good scores in jumping, XC, and dressage shows, and she's great for mounted games (aside from spooking at a lot of the games). But she's definitely not many people's first pick for showing.

Aside from all that, she doesn't have the best ground manners either. She can be very pushy and bratty. She has even climbed through her stable window before because another horse was getting treats and she wasn't! During feeding, she never goes to her stall. She tries to go in everyone else's. And she's escaped her pasture on more than one occasion, either by jumping the fence or bulldozing the fence.

Only thing she's not problematic with is how she is with the other horses. She treats her stablemates decently. She's great with other mares but loves to pick on the boys. Stallions Graser and Will, she loves to attack and pick on in a mean way. But stallion Liam.. she more so seems to mess with him in a teasing/annoying way. She may occasionally bite or kick him, but she rather climb on top of him or disturb him while he's napping.

Overall, she is a very sweet, very friendly mare. She's never outright mean to people, and she does tolerate a lot. Such as kids learning to vault on her, because she's the shortest horse there that tolerates it. But she just.. has no self control. Especially in the warmer months.

The stable puts certain horses to work during only certain months depending on the horse and what they're more accustomed to. Most either work during the cold months, or hot months, and there's few that do both. But Shelby falls into the summer months category as she is more accustomed to heat rather than cold. And during the cold months, she gets a lot of time off from doing absolutely anything.

Again, overall, Shelby is a sweetheart of a mare, and she'll love you and your apple snap treats forever. But she has the nickname "the cutest little asshole" for a reason.