Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A Trot Down Memory Lane......

I always get nostalgic around the holidays and I'd like to share my horses from years past! Gone (from me at least) but never forgotten! Three great horses preceded my lovely Lily......Oly the Welsh X pony given to me by my parents when I was 11. Pete the 3 year old AQHA gelding I bought when I was 23 and Savannah, a yearling Mustang filly that I adopted from the BLM, and joined Pete 2 years later. Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of my first love Oly, but he was a feisty little thing and we had many adventures bombing around (the rural) neighborhood! I never had a saddle while owning him, but I don't recall ever falling off (I think 11 year olds have super glue in their DNA!)


My next horse didn't enter my life until I was 23. I saw an ad in the paper for a ready to start 3 year old AQHA gelding near where I lived, so I went to see him and fell in love! Repeat A Scooter, "Pete" as I called him was a gem! I wanted to train him myself, so that I could "get the horse I wanted", the problem being of course that I had no idea how to accomplish this! He was very tolerant as I got him used to saddle and bridle and lunging, I was even the first one on his back! Fortunately I had the sense to have a real trailer help me with the rest. He turned into super trail horse and we had many fun and exciting miles together!




About 2 years after I got Pete a friend called me up and asked me If I wanted to go with her to a BLM Mustang satellite adoption that was coming to our area. I said sure, it would be fun to see some real live Mustangs in the flesh and I had no intentions of doing anything but looking. HOWEVER (I know you saw this coming) once I got there a yearling filly caught my eye, not because she was gorgeous at the time (she was really small, super shaggy and had a worm belly) but because out of the 8 other horses in her pen she was the only one who hadn't been adopted! I felt so bad for her that I put in my name and after paying the $150 adoption fee and scrambling to find someone to haul her for me, Savannah came into Pete and I's life. It took about 6 weeks to finally be able to even touch her, but once I gained her trust, I could do anything with her! The picture at right is when she was 2 1/2 and was saddled for the first time, it took me all of 5 minutes! She was one of the most mellow horses I have ever know!

It makes me sad sometimes, that these horses had to go out of my life for one reason or another, but I have some great memories!! And now I have Lily, and I plan to keep her forever!

No comments: