Blog Hop: The horse you bought

Posted on September 13, 2018 by the_everything_pony

This blog hop originated from Cathryn at Two and a Half Horses. It’s been a lot of fun seeing flashbacks of people’s horses where they first started and where they are now. Before and after stories are some of favorites. I’m a little late to the party, but it’s never too late to hop on the train!

Amber was actually a really good looking 2yr old by the time I bought her:

But when I first saw her, and was assigned to her as my young horse to train from the ground up she looked like this:

Top photo of her at 1 1/2 and bottom is Amber on her 6th birthday

Definitely the awkward long yearling. But it certainly wasn’t love at first sight. She didn’t want anything to do with me, and I in turn was very frustrated by her not wanting to work with me so I didn’t want anything to do with her either lol. Considering neither one of us knew what we were doing, there was a pretty big learning curve for the both of us. But she was a really sensible baby, and pretty chill with a lot of things I threw at her.

A year later and she was mine, and she decided after 2 months of ownership that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence and got out at night. After suffering what vets thought was a career-ending injury, and even after discovering over a dozen bone chips in the back of her knee and subsequent surgery to remove as many as were possible, she came back amazingly sound. And we’ve been on tons of adventures ever since. She’s been a constant in my life when a lot of other things were unknown, and she’s one of the most forgiving horses I’ve ever known. She’s such a sweetheart, and would rather spend hours and hours with people than other horses. She’s certainly fond of attention!

She’s not as fit as she usually is in this pic, but she’s still grown up to be gorgeous

Now, 6 years after ownership I have been able to ride reining, western pleasure, ranch riding, western dressage, trail, horsemanship, dressage, hunter under saddle and start getting into jumping again with her. I’ve been able to do more with her than any other horse. I didn’t know it at first, but this little mare that can do just about a little bit of everything was exactly what I needed. She’s been the best first horse, and even though she’s been recently forced into retirement, we’re still enjoying spending lots of time together.

For Whisper, she came into our lives in 2006 at 4 years old. My mom and I had no idea how to ride such a well-trained pleasure horse (thank god we’re a bit better now – sorry Whisper!) but she was just the horse my mom needed after her previous horse bolted a lot. Whisper was the epitome of “whoa” and would stop pretty much dead in her tracks. She was instrumental in helping me develop my love for training horses, and for my mom to conquer her fears. I showed Whisper for a while in high school, and we learned so much together.

Whisper was either 4 or 5 in this photo. And yes, it is a scan of a photo haha

Now Whisper is looking better than ever, and at 16 years old, she’s living a pretty cushy life with us on our property. After a lot of trial and error with various trainers we’ve finally been able to get Whisper reacquainted with her previous training, and she’s looking really fit and fabulous. I still have all of my ribbons, plaques and saddle bags and portable tables and everything else that Whisper helped me win. Her sweet nature and giving soul have caused all who meet her to fall in love with her (seriously tho lol she has just about one of the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen on a horse) and she even started a buying spree at one of our old barns when we got her. After meeting her, no less than 3 other people bought new horses haha.

Whisper just before her 16th birthday. I think she’s looking fabulous ❤

Both horses are a huge part of our lives. We’ve been lucky to have 2 chestnut mares who are pretty much perfect in every way as far as mares go. Both are so sweet and loving and willing and I’ve been very lucky to have two such wonderful horses.