How did you know your horse was "the one" ?

Your story is wonderful!

I love telling my story -- thanks for asking!

I was FINALLY in a position to buy a horse. I'd gotten through college and joined the Air Force. I had a career, a steady income, a car, an apartment. It was time to find my Dream Horse. I started looking in May 1980 (yes, that long ago!) and had saved up enough money to buy a nice grade horse. Unfortunately, I couldn't FIND a nice grade horse. So I started looking a breeds, especially Arabians. I looked and looked, for 7 months I looked. I saw tons of very nice horses but none of them were The One.

Then I saw the ad. The Horse For Sale ad that had the magic words -- 'Spirited, yet gentle.' Those were the exact words I had used to describe my Dream Horse since I was a little girl. I just KNEW this was the right horse for me. BUT there wasn't any price in the ad, so I told myself I shouldn't call, I shouldn't get my hopes up, that he was probably WAY too expensive -- and I kept telling myself this while I was dialing the number.

I was right, he was expensive, about 3 times more than I had planned on paying. So I told myself I shouldn't go see him, and kept telling myself this while I got directions to his barn. (Good thing I don't listen to myself!)

On Nov. 2, 1980 I drove to a beautiful house with a very nice barn and the owner led me to a stall. Out walked a bay gelding with an unkempt mane and a full winter coat -- and I gasped. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen! I KNEW he was The One, my Dream Horse. I spent some time with him, grooming and lunging but it was already dark out so I couldn't ride him then. Didn't matter, I wanted him. He was an 8 year old mahogany bay with a long mane and tail. He wasn't tall, 14.2 but in those days that was considered medium height and I was fine with it. His confirmation was VERY nice. He had been bred, trained and shown professionally for the first 7 years of his life, the current owners had had him for less than a year. (They liked to buy, trade and sell horses I guess.) He had also been used for stud. I even liked his name, El Winds Pharoh -- so much more pronouncable than some Arabs I had looked at!

But best of all was his personality. He was very friendly and cooperative, very well mannered, interested in everything and just all-around NICE. I was SO totally in love!

Problem was, I didn't have enough money to buy him. I didn't have enough saved up, I didn't have a credit card or even a credit rating (it was a different world back then!) so I couldn't get a loan. For over 2 weeks I tried to get the money to buy him but just couldn't come up with it. I was heartbroken. I visited him several times, rode him on a trail ride and fell more and more in love. Finally I called my parents, not to ask for money, just to talk about him. But they offered a loan and OF COURSE I took it. So, on my 23rd birthday, I was able to buy the horse of my dreams!

Pharoh and I enjoyed THOUSANDS of hours together on trail rides and at a few small shows. I half-leased him a few times and he was shown in BIG shows -- Western, Hunt Seat and Saddle Seat. He was amazing. Let me rephrase that -- he was AMAZING. He was the most willing horse you can imagine -- if he understood what you wanted him to do, he would do it. He was SO affectionate and well mannered and sweet and, yes, he WAS spirited! But never scary, always under control. Everyone who ever met him loved him. Every farrier who ever worked on him offered to buy him from me. He was SPECIAL and he was mine.

For 23 years we had the BEST times together and lots of adventures. Then, when he was 31 years old, I retired him. He was boarded at a fabulous barn and I visited him several times a week. He was healthy and still cantered up the pasture to me when I called him. He lived his comfortable retired life for over 3 years and then one day another horse was playing around and kicked Pharoh. The kick broke his leg and ... just like that, he was gone.

As much as I miss Pharoh, as sad as I am that he is gone, I will be forever grateful that I was able to share my life with him. There will never be another one like him, at least not for me. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO lucky that I found him!

I had just lost an Arabian gelding and a co-worker came by and said his neighbor raised Arabians. They had a foal that they just wanted sold for a price I could afford, so I said yes.

I went to see the foal and there stood the twin to my lost gelding in the next pasture - the sire. And sure enough the sire was a half-brother to the horse I had just lost. And in the next pasture was the mare and foal. The breeder admitted that the reason the foal was so "cheap" was that in 2-weeks they had been unable to catch the foal at all - even after locking the mare in a stall overnight.

But the foal trotted right up to me. I took pictures and when I left, the foal chased my car down the mile-long driveway. I had to walk him back and put him in the stall with his mother. Each time I came up to take pictures for the next few months, it was the same story - they had been unable to handle the foal but he would run right up to me.

I guess you really can't get a clearer sign than that. He grew into a gorgeous 16.1H polish-line Arabian who was a calm as could be even as a foal and would do anything for me.

Our horse loved me from day one, simple as that. We'd only looked at one horse in our barn (who seemed to know he was being sold and was extremely resentful and ill-behaved for it) and went to another barn to look at two potential geldings. There was another person looking at horses there, too, looking at the first gelding. He was being a pain in the rear just getting groomed and tacked up. The other gelding was still in his stall initially, while the other person tried out the first gelding. While we were waiting, one of the stablehands came up and talked to me a bit. Everything he had to say was good. Foxy (Fox at the time) behaved well, always came to the gate when pasture time was up, didn't cause problems in the stall... all positive.

After tacking up and riding him a bit, my trainer/agent also suggested I just walk him around to see how he behaved. He wanted to walk so close to me that I thought he was surely going to just run me over, as Foxy's pace was faster than the horses I was used to. Just to make sure, they had me go around the arena one moretime. Foxy put his nose against the back of my shoulder and walked like that the whole way. We were pretty much hooked on him from that point.

We found out later during the final before-purchase vet check that he had a lesion (nick out of the bone) in his right front fetlock, which made him unusable for competitions/jumping. The vet said he was likely born with it. Foxy was being used as a competition jumper at the time. We still wanted him, seeing as he was just plain a great horse, and we were very attached to him by then, but told the old owner about his leg problem and that he wasn't worth nearly what he was being offered for sale at. She literally said that she didn't care and only gave us 1/8 of his price off. According to her, if we didn't buy him, someone would without doing the x-ray to catch the bad leg and pay full price. We loved him far too much to let him be wasted and wrecked up like that, so we got him. 10 years later, we still don't regret it!

My story with my pony is, i had had a terrible fall of my section A welsh mountain pony and had been put of ridding for about a year.

My mum bought a lovely pony called Jake for herself but she and the pony didn't get on from the begging. mum was going to sell Jake but i had grown quite close to him and he seemed to warm to me.

I rode him out for the first time about 9 years ago and i am now 14 loving every minute with my pony Jake and wouldn't sell him for the world.

I Truly believe that if i hadn't ridden Jake then i would have never ridden again, he's my little Savior

This video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zclp9_LSEX8

(Spanish horses do not need be to gelded.)

She was the only one in th slaughter pen to come up to me.......

i have no idea y see was in there because she is extremly friendly and pretty well broke! i love and i know God blessed me with her! :)

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