Post by shadowlark on Mar 11, 2014 3:14:24 GMT
I started riding when I was 8 years old, but I'd always loved horses. I had about 30 My Little Ponies when I was a kid (and I still have them and have started collecting them) and read every horse book I could get my hands on. I was THRILLED when my parents said I could start taking lessons. Of course, right away I wanted my own horse. I begged and pleaded and finally my Dad made a deal with me: I had to prove I was serious by taking lessons and learning as much as I could about horses and I had to prove this over 5 years. If I was serious, Dad said he would buy me a horse when I was 13.
When I was 12, we moved to the country, to a little 3 acre farm. With a barn. I was still taking lessons and even helping at the barn on Saturdays in exchange for free lessons. The countdown to age 13 was on!
Sadly, there was no pony on my 13 birthday. But one day, in the summer, my Dad came into my room and asked if I wanted to go to an auction with him. There would be horses there, but we were only going to look, just to get an idea of prices. He even showed me that he only had a $50 in his wallet. So off we went.
There were lots of horses, mostly crammed into smaller pens, too many horses in each one. We knew they'd end up with the meat man. Then we saw her. A big, dark bay horse, with a lady in her 30s grooming her and gently talking to her. We stopped to chat and she told us the mare's name was Cricket, she was 15 years old, had been shown hunter/jumper (and she showed us her passport as proof), and she hoped to sell her to a family but would pull her from the auction of it looked like the meat men were after her. She asked if I wanted to ride her and of course I said yes! I rode her and she was a dream. Lovely manners, nice and calm in the chaos of the auction, just perfect. We untacked her and the lady let me brush her while her and dad wandered off. I'd heard her say the price was $1200 and knew better than to get my hopes up, since dad only had a $50.
I wish I could have seen my jaw drop when they came back and said she was mine! Dad had promised to send her the rest of the money (and he kept his word) and the lady even trailered her home for us! I spent that summer riding around the back country roads and Dad built me jumps out of fallen trees and old tires. We found a new coach in the fall and bought a trailer and I started showing her the next year.
On March 24, 1999, I came home from school and saw mum crying. Dad had noticed the horses (we'd brought Maddy home by then) weren't in the field and gone to the barn to see what they were up to, and found Cricket dead, with poor Maddy forlornly standing over her. We didn't have an autopsy done, so we're not sure what happened. She'd been fine that morning, so maybe heart attack? She was only 21 years old. I can't believe in 2 weeks it will be 15 years since she died.
Just thought I'd share some pics of her. I don't have many good pics of her as we had her in the pre-digital camera days. I know there are more pics of her at my parents', just have to find them next time I'm home.
She was the best first horse a girl could ever have.
When I was 12, we moved to the country, to a little 3 acre farm. With a barn. I was still taking lessons and even helping at the barn on Saturdays in exchange for free lessons. The countdown to age 13 was on!
Sadly, there was no pony on my 13 birthday. But one day, in the summer, my Dad came into my room and asked if I wanted to go to an auction with him. There would be horses there, but we were only going to look, just to get an idea of prices. He even showed me that he only had a $50 in his wallet. So off we went.
There were lots of horses, mostly crammed into smaller pens, too many horses in each one. We knew they'd end up with the meat man. Then we saw her. A big, dark bay horse, with a lady in her 30s grooming her and gently talking to her. We stopped to chat and she told us the mare's name was Cricket, she was 15 years old, had been shown hunter/jumper (and she showed us her passport as proof), and she hoped to sell her to a family but would pull her from the auction of it looked like the meat men were after her. She asked if I wanted to ride her and of course I said yes! I rode her and she was a dream. Lovely manners, nice and calm in the chaos of the auction, just perfect. We untacked her and the lady let me brush her while her and dad wandered off. I'd heard her say the price was $1200 and knew better than to get my hopes up, since dad only had a $50.
I wish I could have seen my jaw drop when they came back and said she was mine! Dad had promised to send her the rest of the money (and he kept his word) and the lady even trailered her home for us! I spent that summer riding around the back country roads and Dad built me jumps out of fallen trees and old tires. We found a new coach in the fall and bought a trailer and I started showing her the next year.
On March 24, 1999, I came home from school and saw mum crying. Dad had noticed the horses (we'd brought Maddy home by then) weren't in the field and gone to the barn to see what they were up to, and found Cricket dead, with poor Maddy forlornly standing over her. We didn't have an autopsy done, so we're not sure what happened. She'd been fine that morning, so maybe heart attack? She was only 21 years old. I can't believe in 2 weeks it will be 15 years since she died.
Just thought I'd share some pics of her. I don't have many good pics of her as we had her in the pre-digital camera days. I know there are more pics of her at my parents', just have to find them next time I'm home.
She was the best first horse a girl could ever have.