((-*The Horse Thread!*-))

Just post a picture of your horse, tell it's show name, it's barn name, it's breed, it's color, etc., a little story on how you got it, and how long you've been riding!

As most of you know, I have a 13.3 hh Grey Welsh pony Gelding! His show name is "It Must Be Magic", and his barn name is "Merlin". :) He was born in Canada and then moved to Riverside, CA, where we purchased him. :) He now lives happily in the Agoura Woodland Hills Pony Club in Agoura, CA. I have also been riding for about 9 years, and I have had Merlin for about One and a half years. :)

I'm too lazy to go get a picture from photobucket, so you can see him in my signature!! :)

Whiskey is not my horse but he's up there in the years. I have been riding him for awhile and thought I should share his personality with you. He is good natured and he loves nuzzling your hand looking for a treat. I hope this counts ;) and he is a BIG love bug!

I used to shareboard a 15.3+hh seal brown TB gelding, son of FAST PLAY and grendson to SEATTLE SLEW. Regestered name I'm A Player, barn name Player. He was an ex-racer rescue who was (despite quite royal lines) afraid of racing and just wanted to be a pet. He was sold to Iowa because he started misbeaving and the owner didn't want any trouble:( Here is his story from a part of a story I wrote about all of my past animals:
Well, his glory days are over, he needs your help.” And so I imagine were the words spoken to my riding instructor by Player’s trainer in the fall of 2003. “What glory days?” would have been my instructor’s reply, “You mean his foal days spent care free on the farm? They were over a long while ago.
The great, beautiful horse was free of charged, and inevitably doomed, so he came to stay at Wedgewood Farms Equestrian Center in Wheeling. My favorite Quarter Horse mare had just been transferred to the new facilities at the old Happy Trails place in Wauconda. I normally would have been upset, but Player caught my eye.
When I heard his story, I thought of Ferdinand, the unfortunate winner of the 1983 Kentucky Derby who ended up at a foreign slaughterhouse. I took care of Player two days a week and eventually shared to boarding costs on him with his owner and rode him three times a week. My instructor and Player’s owner graciously taught me how to teach him. How to be loved, how to be a pet, and how to be ridden. He loved to jump and so did I, even though we both were novice. He slowly became my next emotional investment, I unconsciously told myself in the back of my head that I would buy him when I would get a job to pay for him. One day my instructor told me I was the first person other than Donna, his owner and herself that Player was being sold to Krystal, the girl who rode him on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and they were looking for a share-boarder. Sine I had already share-boarded hi, they all thought I was the obvious first choice. I was in shock, my mind was numb, but I climbed up and rode him like I have never before and since ridden a horse, to show I can connect with this horse. I knew, Wauconda was forty-five minutes away and Krystal was moving there to be closer to him. I knew my parents weren’t going to drive me there and back three days a week while the other watched the other two children in our family. I panicked and announced to a full car that we would be needing to go to the new place. They replied in sweet tones, “Ok, we’ll try Saturdays to see if it will work out.”
“ No,” I said again, “We really need to go. “ They again replied,
“That’s fine, we can try that.” I kept repeating the same thing over and over again until I was angry with them,
“No, they’re selling Player and they want a share-boarder!”
“Oh, honey, I don’t think that’s going to work out, but we’ll…” It all faded as I laid back onto the back bench of the mini van and cried into the fuzzy grey upholstery. When I started to feel carsick I sat up and asked where we were going because I was disoriented. My answer made me lay back down and cry.
“It’s really hot so we’re all going to Dairy Queen, do you want a Blizzard? You can have anything you want.”
“No, “ I said, “I don’t know what I want.”
I tried to order a raspberry Mr. Freezee, but I guess I ordered a blue raspberry freezee. I mixed in the ice cream and played with it. Guess I looked really funny because some girls sitting at a small table adjacent to us looked at me and snickered. This might seem like a little over reacting, but remember I had already gone through two of those life-altering mishappenings before and knew what was probably in store.
Player was moved to Wauconda along with the rest of the horses in the very end of July, 2004. It was happily worked out that I would pay a girl to drive me to the barn and then back home at the end of the day on Saturdays and ride Player for Krystal. I was quite relieved and this time had to cry happy tears, I was wrong. I returned from two consecutive one-week vacations to a different Player. He, being a “baby” was very upset in this change of schedule and started having “temper tantrums” He would bolt on a regular basis, kick more often, bite a lot more, buck at random, and now fiercely protected his food. (All claimed by Krystal) I wasn’t aloud to ride him at all, she wasn’t allowed to buy him, and pretty soon he was isolated to the farthest stall. One day Krystal came and told me he was tailored off to “somewhere in Iowa last month” and I was right then and there felling very different then you would expect; I was happy for him. Here he was lonely, bored and depressed. There he would interact with other people and horses and once he was settled it, be (I thought) very happy there, wherever it he is.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ofFastPlay.jpg
not the best pic, but I never really got any good ones of him.:(
His head looks so ugly in this one!

Everyone has such pretty horses!

I hope its ok if I post a picture of Darn, because when I find out who he was sold to, I've talked with my parents and if I have enough money I can buy him back! (I hope they weren't just saying that to make me feel better!)

Well, Darn is around 18 years old. His barn name is Darn, and he doesn't really have a show name. But if I ever do start showing him I was trying to come up with ideas and came up with 'The Darnest Thing'. (I guess that could work...:) )

When I rode Darn he was living at the stables near me and was being used as a school horse. All I know about where he has been sold is that its a farm on the border of IL and Wisc. and he might not even be ridden anymore, he is a companion for her pony since her other one just died.

I rode Darn once a week for eight months, but before I started at this new stable I had ridden western for 2 1/2 years somewhere else. (But that was a long time ago!)

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...9/f709d5cf.jpg
^^Thats Darn (and me) at the school show^^

You guys have/had such beautiful horses! ChrissyCat, I hope you can find Darn and buy him back! :)

Keep those pics coming!

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...2/f501fd95.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...d/f50203e2.jpg
sorry both the pictures are bad:o

Well this is Dot, I've only ridden her 3 times so far, but when it gets nicer out I'll start riding her more. She was RB Sis's pasture mate. She is trained in western pleasure, reining, trail, and contesting, which is poles, barrels, and on horse games. She can easily do more. Her show name is Little S B, she is sorral with 2 stockings(I think their stockings) and a blaze down her forehead with a black dot on the nose and she's 9 years old.

My RB horse Sis was the first horse I had ever ridden, she was a sweetheart and an old gal when I met her, she was 27, most people said they felt sorry for me because I had an old horse. I never did, I loved her so much. She was a sorral with a star on her forehead and one sock on her back leg. Her show name was Miss Equalizer Too, and she could do anything from Western and English, she was trained in almost everything. She died The 28th of December 2004. She was 30 years old and you can see her in my Siggy.

This is a picture of my baby girl. Her name was Sunrise Dreamer. We called her Sweets. She was a 15.3 hand Palomino/Quarter Horse mare. Her name was so fitting to her. I personally have been riding horses for about 15 years, but I had Sweets for about 10. Unfortunatly she had suspensory ligament disease and left us too soon. Having her put to sleep was the hardest decision of my life and even though its been just over a year....I still have a hard time with her loss. As far as how I got Sweets...well....I was the typical 9 year old girl who wanted her own horse. My parents made an agreement with me that if I could show them I was responsible by leasing a horse named "Corky D'Leo" for a year then we could start looking for a horse of my own. I took the best care of Corky and we began to look. My trainer and my parents wanted me to have a smaller horse, but one day we went to look at Sweets. She was 15.3 hands and I was about 4'8" and only 10 years old. Sweets was young, she was just shy of 5 years old. My trainer didn't think it was a good idea. I rode her and we immediatly had a wonderful chemistry together. Two weeks later, she was mine. She was my baby and I loved her with all my heart, we we were a wonderful team both in and out of the show ring. We eventually got brave enough to go to a few New York State Palonimo Horse Association shows and they were sooo fun.
Well....needeless to say I miss my girl very much. Here is one of the last pictures of my riding her taken last spring (2004).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrissycat21
Palatine Stables

---

I was going to start riding there but chose to keep riding at Wedgewood. They are building a hotel where the old one was.:(
Sweets is such a beautiful horse.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Suki Wingy
I was going to start riding there but chose to keep riding at Wedgewood. They are building a hotel where the old one was.:(
Sweets is such a beautiful horse.

---

I rode at Wedgwood for 2 years when I was younger. My friend, Audrina rides there, too.

OOOOOOOH, I soooooo WISH I had a horse!!!!:(:(:( But I do ride my favorite horse really often, so he's *almost* mine! (at horseback riding);) (plus I feed and groom him whenever I visit) His name's Busta, and he's a retired racehorse/thoroughbred, 16 hh, and around 13 yrs old. I love him so much though, and wish we had room so I could buy him!!:D Here's a pic of him a while ago...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrissycat21
I rode at Wedgwood for 2 years when I was younger. My friend, Audrina rides there, too.

---

I know Audrina. She owns Sweet Cheeks. She is a really good rider. Have you ever been caught in the middle of a "crop war"?

Busta is pretty cute! do you ride hiim western? Player and the horse I ride now were both racehorses.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Suki Wingy
I know Audrina. She owns Sweet Cheeks. She is a really good rider. Have you ever been caught in the middle of a "crop war"?

---

Nope, no crop wars...lol

Whats your name, BTW? :)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Suki Wingy
Busta is pretty cute! do you ride hiim western? Player and the horse I ride now were both racehorses.

---

Yea, right now I ride him western, but I'm gonna start english like REALLY soon, lol!!:D (and SO excited!);) I've only been riding for a year or so anyway, but yup, I love him a ton!!!;)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrissycat21
Whats your name, BTW? :)

---

Eva

Quote:

---

Yea, right now I ride him western, but I'm gonna start english like REALLY soon, lol!! (and SO excited!) I've only been riding for a year or so anyway, but yup, I love him a ton!!!

---

English is FUN! You just have to use your legs more. I can see how you can love Busta a ton, just like I love Whiskey:) I can't wait til this spring to start :p I am so excited! I have been horse-back riding since I was 11 but in Nevada people had horses and I got to ride them so actually I have been riding since I was 5 :)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by luvofallhorses
English is FUN! You just have to use your legs more. I can see how you can love Busta a ton, just like I love Whiskey:) I can't wait til this spring to start :p I am so excited! I have been horse-back riding since I was 11 but in Nevada people had horses and I got to ride them so actually I have been riding since I was 5 :)

---

I know, I've only ridden english a couple times...quite a bit different than western, but I liked it!! I think it's more about balance too, since there's nothing really keeping you on the horse. (except the stirrups...) Whisky sounds like a neat horse! Do you have any pics of him?;)

http://members.aol.com/DesertArabian87/jack2.JPG

This is Jack. When he has his winter coat, like he does in the picture, I call him Woolybear. It is believed that he is a cross between a Morgan and a Quarter Horse, but no one is really 100% positive. He is rather young too; his teeth show that he is between the ages of 7 and 9. I do not personally own Jack, but we own each others souls for we have bonded very deeply. Jack and I have been a team for 5 years now, and each year our bond seems to deepen and new memories are created for us to share forever. The horse camp I volunteer at is his home where he lives with 52 other equine friends, 50 of which ignore him and do not even notice he exists. No one else at the camp seems to care for him as much either; I am the only one who has deep bond with him and spend most of my days with him. Jack sure is a character! He has a slight attitude problem and it is unleashed when inexperienced people get on him with the attitude “I know how to ride, don’t tell me what to do, this horse will obey me”- which is the attitude that 90% of the little girls who come to the riding camp have. Too many times do I hear “That horse is a monster, it doesn’t listen, it reared on me- I never want to ride it again” when people dismount Jack. Part of me laughs inside when I hear that because most of the time the rider brought this situation upon themselves, while the other part of me is saddened because I want people to enjoy Jack as much as I do- that is something Jack and I will have to work on this summer. When I ride Jack, he is far from the “horrible rearing monster” I hear about all the time, he and I have a lot of fun together. I prefer to ride him bareback, because there is more animal/human contact and he responds better to more aids, rather than when he is saddled. On really hot, humid days we like to go for a little swim in the lake, he LOVES to splash around and get me nice and wet. We’ve made a lot of small achievements in the ring also, he does amazing flying lead changes and is very good at picking up a right lead going into a left circle- it sure does feel weird, but it makes me very happy when he picks up on those signals and responds correctly. Another silly memory I have of us- one time Jack and I were cantering around in Indian Pasture, which is very hilly and full of little (natural) obstacles. I was working on getting Jack to pick up left and right leads while cantering in a straight line. As we were slowly progressing up this little valley he stopped, out of no where with no warning, I was bareback so there was nothing but balance holding me on- I flew over his head and landed about 20 feet in front of Jack- but I landed on my feet!! How I landed on my feet I do not know, since I was launched off head first- my riding buddies were laughing hysterically and were trying to describe how I looked- supposedly I flipped in the air, but I do not remember that part! Of all the memories made with Jack, one stands out among the rest. The memory was made the summer of 2003. Jack and I were on a night time trail ride, it was very warm and humid out, the spring peepers were singing, the air smelled of rain- it was a perfect night for a ride. Jack and I were in a field, which has an amazing view of the surrounding area, where we could see a distant thunderstorm heading our way. Before we turned around to head back, we stopped and watched. The lightning show was one of the best I have ever seen, the lightning would travel UP into the cloud, illuminating the HUGE billowing storm clouds- however, no thunder could be heard yet. I leaned over and gave Jack a hug on the neck, then started to head back and we made it back just in time- it turned out to be one VERY nasty storm that ended up doing a lot of damage. Jack showed me exactly how much he cares for me in June of 2004, when he blocked a kick from a horse that would have ended up hitting me in the head- most likely killing me. Jack took the kick for me, which signifies to me that he cares a lot. Jack, I love you so much, I can’t thank you enough for all that you have done for me, buddy.


So, that’s Jack, one of the many horses in my life, but he is the top dog. I could go on, and on, and on- make a 150,000 page novel about him and I, but for now I will just make this little post- LOL.
:p

Jack sounds like the perfect horse! I've never LANDED ON MY FEET! LOLOLOL!:D :) ;) I wish I could have seen that!
BTW, your writing is very descriptive, I like it!

I don't have any horses, but I love these animals VERY much! My sister lives in the countryside and she owns 4 beautiful horses. I don't know their breed, but they all are very well taken care of!I have pics of 3 of those horses!

this is Cadans
http://users.pandora.be/bernardgabri.../Lieve%204.jpg

this is Puck
http://users.pandora.be/bernardgabri.../Lieve%206.jpg
http://users.pandora.be/bernardgabri.../Lieve%207.jpg

This is Adelheid
http://users.pandora.be/bernardgabri.../Lieve%205.jpg