I need something cheery and a little hope. What’s your most inspirational horse stories?
I wish I had one myself but one of my trainers were telling me that their horse had an OCD in the hock at 4 years old and a hind suspensary injury but she recovered and made it to the 2* level of eventing. She’s still going in her mid/late teens.
A horse story?
About 50 years ago, this horse trader brought us a big sabino paint for us to try as a pony horse, to exercise race colts and to be our pony horse at the track.
He worked great, was perfect for that.
In the trailer the trader had this little, maybe 14.2 hands 7-8 year old grey paint/arabian cross gelding.
I asked about him and he said he was taking him to the slaughter plant, there was one 40 miles South of us in those days.
The gelding had almost killed several people flipping in the roping box, was not safe.
I asked to try him out, I was used to rearing horses, knew how to handle them.
The trader didn’t really want me to, but said if I was very careful, let me see if I can get along with him.
I saddled him and went to bring a slow, lame bull in from the pasture.
Horse did fine, drove the slow bull without getting antsy or nervous, was very manageable and I gave him a few chances to want to rear, stopping him and waiting on the bull, as we were getting to the pens and little horse was nice about it.
So, the trader said, try him a few days, we will settle later if he works for you.
What do you know, he was so nice, he made my number one ranch horse and helped pony race colts. As small as he was, he looked like big race colts little foal, but even the raunchiest colts loved him, never acted up, even nuzzled him gently.
One morning we went to town for supplies and as we were coming back we saw some cows had gone thru the fence.
As we got to the house, I was let by the barn and told to get my little horse in and change and go get the cattle back in.
The geldings had been in drinking water and were starting to walk to go back to their pasture, some already over the hill, but he was by the gate.
I walked to the gate and told him to wait for me and ran to the house.
There they asked if I had put him in and I said no, just told him to wait for me.
They laughed at me and said, really, you think he will still be there, with the others leaving?
I got worried and really hurried and oh, yes, of course, he was still at the gate, waiting for me.
The horse trap was by the house, so when we went to feed we put flakes of alfalfa there for the geldings there and then walked over to the barn and fed the others in the stalls with runs.
We had a new yearling stallion that was going to be our replacement stallion after we ran him in one of those stalls and his run was right against the horse trap.
We feed our geldings and this little horse of mine would pick a flake and go feed the yearling, that was standing in his run nickering softly, handing him the flake over the fence.
That is how super nice he was and he never ever offered to rear.
The trader would never take any money for him, said he was glad horse had a good home.
Rowdy was one of the roughest trotting horses I ever rode, but he was like a goat running around the canyons, over the roughest ground and one of the smartest and kindest horses.
I was lucky to have him, he was the horse stories are made of.
I love this, you both sound lucky to have found each other!!
What a sweet story! Such a special horse. Thanks for sharing. 
I apologize for the link, but it’s too long for me to repost here.
I love the writing style!! So glad he was okay…how terrifying!
I just love this horse and the story. I’ve seen a couple of their rides on YouTube and they are definitely not flashy. But you can just see the harmony and it’s beautiful to watch.
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