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 Veteran
Posts: 138
 
| Thank you! He's a pretty special animal to me.
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 Chasin my Dream
Posts: 13651
   
Location: Alberta | First horse in my life? Or barrel horse? I'll tell you about both!
Although I rode my moms gelding from a young age and my brother and I shared a pony, the first horse of my own was a small bay Arab gelding named Squirt. My mom had got a lead from a lady who had a pen full of Arabs she was planning to ship for meat and said we were welcome to come look thru them. They were a well bred group of horses, just not handled much (only halter broke). My mom and I went, I was about 12/13?! I immediately went into the pen and while the group wasn't handled they all seemed to take a liking to me...but there was one gelding who stuck out to me. Something told me I had to have him, mom agreed and took him home that day. When we got home we tied him in the barn, which he proceeded to try to climb the barn wall...my dad walked in at that moment and stated "his daughter was not getting on that horse". Mom and I trained him and although he had his quirks he was a great horse. Even into his old age he would pace when tied and dig a hole to China, but just who he was. When I moved onto another horse he became the "horse for anyone horseless" in our 4-H club (mostly if people's horses were hurt and they couldn't ride at activities). He was a horse with a heart larger then he was (he was no more then 14HH). We had to put him down due to health issues, I think he was only 16?!
My first barrel horse still stands in my pasture....that's a story for another thread I guess!
Edited by dream_chaser 2015-06-05 2:52 PM
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  Independent Cuss
Posts: 3977
Location: Dearing, GA | My first horse was the best babysitter money could buy, which was incredible because I bought him as a 3 year old! I paid for him from my savings account when I was 14. I sold him when I got back from college to a young girl, and he was the same babysitter for her. He passed away last month after a bad colic battle that he just couldn't recover from. His name was Rowdy, and he was just the most patient, laid back, take-it-in-stride horse I've ever met.
I have two precious memories with Rowdy that I value over anything else. My dad died when I was 15, only a year after I bought Rowdy. I spent that day at the barn just crying, and Rowdy let me cry all over him.
Years down the road, I was letting my old stable use him as a lesson horse in their hippotherapy program. A boy, who was 17, a senior in high school, had cerebral palsy and couldn't support his back to sit up on a horse. We got him on Rowdy, then Rowdy let me ride double behind the boy with my arms wrapped around him for laps and laps around the arena. That boy was so happy, and Rowdy was so calm. The boy must've been over 250 lbs, so there was a good 400lbs of weight on this poor horse and he never even flinched. I'd never been so proud of a horse in my life.
ETA Rowdy was only 12 when he passed away last month.
Edited by Just Let Me Run 2015-06-05 6:14 PM
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 A Somebody to Everybody
Posts: 41354
Location: Under The Big Sky Of Texas | I got my very first pony when I was 9 years old, she was so darn cute her name was Buttermilk and that was about 47 years ago so I think we all know where she is..  |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | FLITASTIC - 2015-06-05 12:40 PM My first horse is 6' under at our ranch. He was my moms 6x NFR barrel horse that I roped and ran barrels/poles on until he was 36. He only had one eye and one day he was still fat and sassy he just went up on the hill, laid down, and died. : ) 
I've meant to ask this before..
Who is your mom?
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 Total Germophobe
Posts: 6437
Location: Montana | I sold my first horse 6 years ago in July. She has since passed on at the age of 27 (she had bad arthritis in her knees) but got to have a good home before me, with me, and after me. She was a wonderful teacher, not a barrel horse, but a wonderful teacher on how to ride. Loved her to death, and was sad to sell her, but she went to a great home where she got to teach some other little kids. At the time I couldn't keep two horses, so had to sell one to get another. |
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 I'm Cooler Offline
Posts: 6387
Location: Pacific Northwest | Buried on our property. His name was Mikey, I was 4 and he was 14. Fancy-broke heel horse that had a shoulder injury so they didn't want to rope off of him anymore. He was a good horse to learn on, he wasn't a dead-head but he wasn't bad either, he never once bucked with me and he spooked ONCE in all the years I rode him. He died when he was 26 from colic complications (enterolith). |
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 A Gopher's Worst Nightmare
Posts: 5094
Location: Southern Oregon | Buried up on the hill here at our place. 34 years old, he had cancer. :( |
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 Take a Picture
Posts: 12838
| My first barrel horse would be 55 years old today. She was born on our ranch. She was a tough competitor and took me a lot of places. At the district 4-H show she was 6th out of 220 entries in barrels and 8th out of 200 entries in poles. I rode in the second state 4-H horse show in TX where she was 16th out of 116 entries. Back then, there was no 4D. I ran her on the college rodeo team at SFASU and always got a check. She was put down at 18 from ringbone. |
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 I Don't Brag
Posts: 6960
| My first pony was 3 months old when I got him (I was 10). He was "out of the family" helping to raise 3 boys for 4 or 5 years before my Mother bought him back to raise her grandkids ......and greatgrandkids. He came back home to me as a seeing eye pony for my first horse, who I got at age 2. My horse made it to age 31 and pony age 36.
We have too many buried here. One was hit by a car, 2 from colic and 6 from old age.
My good rodeo mare is 29 this year and I am dreading that decision. Biggest heart in the world but her body is failing her. It's getting harder and harder for her to get up after laying down. It is SO hard but it breaks my heart to see all those Craigslist ads where people are pawning off their aging horses so that someone else has to deal with the difficulties. |
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 Accident Prone
Posts: 22277
Location: 100 miles from Nowhere, AR | My first horse was a 1962 model and is buried in the pasture at my parents' house. Her name was Honey.
She was an AQHA palomino and had 13 babies, but somewhere along the way, someone broke her to ride. The guy that had her couldn't get her back in foal that year (82?) and she needed more care than he was willing to provide, due to her age, so he gave her to us. I rode her a couple of years before getting my first barrel horse, my little sister rode her a little longer. When she was 25, my dad's gelding kicked her and broke her leg. |
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