Terrified! That’s what I was feeling. It took me a few minutes to give that feeling a name since I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt anything quite this intense. It was a something that was swirling around my insides along with wonder, excitement and a few other emotions that I had yet able to identify. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
We listened to lots of folks telling us that it wasn’t a good idea for our first horse to be a young horse, and yet others said it wouldn’t be a bad thing. My dearest asked me what I thought. I told her that if that is what she wanted to do then I’d be right there to help her do it. Neither one of us had any real experience with horses but were willing to learn provided we could find the right folks to help us do that. I’m not sure where all she went, but one day she came home and told me she’d been out to one of the area ranches and looked at a horse; a young mare that she said was really sweet. Since we still were a bit undecided we missed that one, but not long after she told me about another one that she definitely wanted to get.
So, the day came when it was time to meet the wife at the ranch to buy the horse and meet the lady that owned and ran the ranch where the horse was located. As it turned out we purchased our young mare – a yearling that would turn 2 in July – and could also board her there as well. Once the papers were all signed we took a walk out to the field where our horse was to meet her. All I knew about our new horse was that she was a brown – technically a solid paint. More to the point she’s called a Bay; its a combination of the brown color and mane. Even though you can’t see it here her mane is very dark brown and black.
The image above was taken about the second or third week of May 2014. She’s not quite 14 hand high in this image and at the time we didn’t know how tall or big she’d get. All we were concerned with was learning as much as we could as quickly as we could, because even though I was as nervous as I’d ever been my wife and I were absolutely enthralled with this young horse. She was and still is quiet and laid back and definitely has a sense of humor. Some of her shenanigans can be troublesome, but some are quite amusing. She’s still a yearling in this image. She turned two that July.
Doris and I found out quickly how calming it was to just be around her and the other horse even when we were just grooming her. Which, is what we spent a of time doing the first few weeks. We spent time hand-grazing her (hanging out with her on a lead line while she did her favorite thing – eating grass), feeding her carrots and learning how to take care of a horse.