Fresh Start

I thought that to commemorate my new relationship I should start a new blog to track our progress. Since I finally have a mare I decided that the pink layout would be more than suitable, especially since my new mare is very pretty and feminine. I decided that this first post would be best used to give the background of how I got here.

Sofie

It started in January, when my 19 year old Appendix QH gelding came up lame, favoring his right hind. I had owned him for 14 years and switched solely to dressage for the last couple of years. We had begun training in dressage intensively after I returned from Korea, making great progress...we were currently schooling all of the Second Level movements and some higher. We spent over a month running diagnostics on him. We took x-rays of every joint in the leg, nerve blocked, kept him on stall rest, injected his hock, and then his stifle, ultrasounded, and nothing. No concrete diagnosis, just something that would take a very long time to heal. So he retired to my parents farm in Ohio.

Jessie and I in a lesson, December 16, 2007

So I began the painful process of horse shopping. I didn't have much of a budget because I hadn't been planning on retiring Jessie for another 5 or so years. I decided to look for a mare, 15.3 hands or taller due to my height, that was younger (preferably 10 or less, 8 or less if it didn't have a lot of dressage training to begin with). I looked at 4 mares that were nice, but we didn't click.

The first was a QH mare that needed whomped with your legs every stride and her head jerked side to side in order for her to respect you enough to listen to you. The second was a one eyed Hanoverian/TB mare that bucked when asked to canter. The third was a very nice dark bay OTTB that I could barely get to trot, let alone canter. She also refused every jump placed before her the first time even though she was a seasoned eventer/jumper. The fourth was a grade mare represented as being 15.3 hands, when in reality she was closer to 14.2 or 14.3 hands tall, my ride on her ended when she decided to go to the center of the arena and stop.

Horse number 2

And this was after calling on dozens of horses and looking at ads for at least 100! While posting on Ultimate Dressage for input on the grade mare (prior to riding her) someone posted a link for a Trakehner/Arab mare that was located in Ohio. I called on her and left a message while deciding that I was going to limit my search to Morgans, since I liked them so much and they seemed to have the disposition I was looking for. Unfortunately, they were also pretty short in stature.


Three days later, the agent for the Trakehner mare (named Sophie) called me back, she'd been in Germany when I called previously. I got more information on her and made arrangements to call the agent on that Friday, to see if the family already scheduled to see her had decided to buy her or not. Meanwhile, I found information on a Morgan auction being held just an hour away from my family's house. It consisted mainly of Amish bred horses, that seemed to be the newer style of Morgan. My grandparents decided to take my husband and I on a tour of Amish country to see some Morgans that would be in the sale and the day before the tour I heard from the agent of the Trakehner mare...the family had decided not to come see her, so I arranged to go on Monday to check her out in person. Meanwhile my grandma called one of the farm owners and he had a 2 year old filly for sale that we could see, and then he would give us info on other breeders in the area.

So we had a fun day in Amish land and saw lots of Morgans. But I quickly realized that the horses in the sale were not what I was looking for.

But, I still had the Trakehner/Arab mare to check out on Monday, maybe she would be a good fit. Or I would look at some horses close to Craig's parents house in Pennsylvania, since we were going to be in the area visiting them. I just had to sit back and wait.

So I checked her out on Monday and wasn't too impressed on the ground, but loved her under saddle. She just seemed mousy and like she didn't have too much personality on the ground. It was love at first site for my husband, he was really taken by her and petted her the whole time she was being tacked up. The trainer rode her and I rode her and we did really well, especially since she hadn't been in regular work since November or December (really, any work).

The trainer pointed out some families were coming that weekend and the next weekend (one from Michigan and one from West Virginia) to check her out, just so I knew. I told her that I wanted to watch the video/look at the pictures (and get outside input, lol) and I'd let her know in a day or two. We decided to see her again on Wednesday and take her for another test ride. This time she was much perkier at the barn, I think she just needed some time to settle in as she had been living at her owner's parents farm, but moved to the trainer's barn the day or so before we went to see her because the owner was going on vacation.

I had wanted to see her do a couple of jumps so she was in a jumping saddle that didn't fit and was girthed as tight as it would go (but still wasn't quite tight enough) and she did fine going over a couple of teeny tiny jumps. Even when I had to physically hold the standard up while she went over the jump. So I hopped on and did another quick walk/trot/canter just to make sure, and decided we wanted her.

We set up the vet check and everything went fine. I just got the report in the mail Sunday (DH and I went to visit his parents from the farm on Wednesday and got back Sunday) and the only issue is that her teeth need to be floated. She even passed her flexion tests with no sign of lameness.

Sunday I met her owner and we signed the paperwork. Also, I found out that she does tricks! Her owner showed us how she will Spanish Walk and Bow in hand. It was pretty neat. You can really tell that she loves her owner and is strongly bonded to her, she was much more vibrant when her owner was there, but warmed up really well to DH and I when we pulled out the pink peppermint horse treats we'd bought for her. She is *very* food motivated and even tried to bow after standing for 20 minutes while the humans talked to earn a treat.

We also paid for a month of training and set up my first lesson on her to be Wednesday (tomorrow). We'll probably bring her home as close to May 1st as we can manage and I'll be able to take lessons with my own instructor and get to know her better. Her owner asked me the questions I would ask and seemed pleased with my answers (feeding program, lessons, types of showing I'd done, turnout, etc).

So that's Sophie, my new 8 year old Trakehner/Arabian mare. She's registered with the American Trakehner Association and as a Half Arabian as AR Arabella. She's only 15.1 or 15.2 hands, but should "seem" bigger once she muscles up again. She's kind of an ugly duckling right now because she still has her winter fuzzies and hasn't been in regular work since November, but I have lots of pictures now so that I can keep a record of her change into my next "soul" horse.