The Horse That Changed Your Life

I am just waiting for some information and resources to pull together for a couple of really good entries I want to write for you, but in the meantime, I thought I could talk about "THAT" horse. The Horse That Changed My Life.

No, it wasn't Bronwyn. And no, it wasn't my first pony. I have probably mentioned on this blog before that I grew up on a farm where there were always horses in full supply - in fact, I remember times that, as a breeding, training, showing facility, we had 22 or more horses here - that's pretty good considering the size of our barn! I rode before I walked, and regularly went on trail rides on the front of my mom's saddle before I could independently ride. As soon as I could hold my balance astride, I rode a pony named Doozer... after an unfortunate accident on a lease, I got Katie, then I moved on to Magic, Flirt, Boots, Caleb, and then there was Angel.

I was 16 when my parents brought her home. I had "defected", as many kids who grow up living, breathing and working horses for a living do, at about 14. My parents had sold my gelding because I had lost interest. There were plenty of options for me to ride, but I chose that year to keep a colt out of our best broodmare, and I named him Caleb. My parents took a couple of geldings to a big APHA sale in Timonium, MD, and I requested a grooming kit as my "payment" for keeping the farm while they were gone.

They had used my dad's boss' big rig with a stock trailer to haul the colts down, and brought one of them back. They asked me, when they pulled in, to check on "Smiley", the gelding they'd brought back, and I poked my head into the belly of the trailer to see a gangly, weedy palomino and white filly snoozing in the shavings. I thought they must have hauled home for someone, or made a mistake of some sort. They told me they had always wanted a palomino mare to add to the breeding program. The first words out of my mouth were "I'm not trading".

It seems I had no choice.

The next weekend, my parents were gone again... I highly suspect it was an intentional move in order to give me time to get to know the new filly, named "Sugar" (aptly, she was as sweet as!). They came home to find me in Caleb's stall, in tears. I knew that "Sugar", who I had renamed "Angel" over the weekend on my own, was something really special and she was going to play an important role in my life. It had been a long time since a horse had stirred up the feelings I was feeling and I didn't know what to do with myself. I was upset for abandoning Caleb, and upset for going against what I had told my parents, but it really felt like I had no choice.

She was kind of an ugly duckling, I'll admit. I would not have picked her as the prettiest horse out of a group. She was tall and weedy, about 15.2hh as a long yearling, and I was really not a big fan of palominos - so I can't say I fell for her beauty; there was just something about her.

Over the next five years, she proved that something - though I could never put a finger on it. We had a bond beyond anything I've ever had. I was more passionate about horses than I had ever been in my life. I began considering my life after I left the farm - how it would always include horses, and would always include Angel. She grew into an amazing, beautiful mare.

I started her myself. She changed the way that we all thought about starting young horses. She taught me to push to get what I wanted, for the things I knew were possible. She was the safest horse I had ever owned; though by age 6 she was still only ever "green" broke under saddle, she was so sane I could put green riders on her. I had my first bareback ride since my preteen years on her. She had three beautiful foals, two of which are my "not fat horses", Ari and Rex, who managed to stay with me by some sheer stroke of luck, though there were many, many buyers interested in Ari.

I don't like to get fluffy and romantic about horses, but we also had a bond that transcended the physical. I dreamt the gender and colour of her foals months before they were due. When I was living away from the farm, in town about 45 minutes away, she was due with her second foal. One evening, I laid down to go to bed but could not. I tossed and turned until around 2am, feeling completely miserable, uncomfortable, and inexplicably sad. When I rose in the morning, my mother called and told me that Angel had lost her foal - the vet, my father, and a local dairy farmer had spent two hours pulling the enormous palomino and white colt from her, and they had left at around 2am.

August 28th, 2006, I came home from the agility field with my sister. It was a reasonably decent afternoon - beautiful weather, quite sunny. Angel was laying down in the pasture, up on her chest. I immediately knew something was wrong - she laid down frequently, and she was visibly normal, but I could tell. I ran into the house to grab the mineral oil and tell my parents that she was sick. They insisted she was just snoozing in the sun (which, for all intents and purposes, that was how it appeared). I brought her inside and put a litre of mineral oil into her. Eight hours later, she died.

As soon as she started rolling, I knew she would die - I can't explain it, but I knew. I spent desperate hours walking her, trying to keep her on her feet, trying to keep her alive, even though I knew what the end result would be. Our fantastic large animal vet showed up and spent a couple of hours with her, gave her the strongest painkillers he could, did everything he could... charged me for 15 minutes and the drugs. He left about 45 minutes before she finally let go, and we tried to call him back to euthanise her because we knew it would get no better. My Earth Angel went home just before midnight.

I was completely desperate with grief... my father took her forelock and her tail for me and for months, I carried her forelock everywhere I went, rubbing it whenever I felt anxious. I missed a week of work - I was fortunate to have an understanding boss who had heard story after story about Angel and who pulled strings to make sure I would not be penalized. About a week after it happened, my mother had to take stress leave from work. The entire family was devastated - she had been the hope for our breeding program.

The night that she died, my father told me that "you might not understand it now, but everything happens for a reason...". I hated him for saying that. I couldn't imagine that anything could justify losing Angel. There were times later that I couldn't figure out whether owning her had been a dream or real. She sent me shooting stars every night for months - and not just one shooting star, several, more than I had ever seen before... I always seem to see them now... she doesn't send them often anymore because I am okay, but at the time, I think she was letting me know it was okay. All of this is kind of silly to me, someone who has always viewed horses as livestock, and understood the "industry" side of things, but I swear it's true!

It was just about a month shy of 1 year later when I saw Bronwyn for the first time. I was looking for a very specific horse - I wanted a 16hh or taller, 10 year old or older, broke broke broke stock horse GELDING, and I preferred that he was sorrel or bay. Bronwyn was none of the above. She was, at the time, 15hh with long toes, 3 years old, wild as the wind, a MARE, and she was black. She also needed a few pounds and a TON of work.

She was running around the pasture of a friend of the family, wild and wooly. He couldn't tell me a whole lot about her, and introduced her as "that friesian filly" (we are fairly certain she has 0% friesian in her). She didn't even stand still long enough for me to see if all four legs came out of different holes, but I knew. Just like I "just knew" with Angel, I just KNEW.

A year later, her former owner told me that he had seen something in that pasture, that that skinny, scared filly needed me as badly as I needed her, and who was he to stand in the way of whatever that was?

Bronwyn frustrated and infuriated me for about six months, and I thought many, many, many times of returning her and giving up. She would tolerate just about anything but I could tell she didn't like it, and after having such a great working relationship with Angel, I couldn't imagine owning a horse that didn't want to work for me. At best, I viewed her as a resale project to help me get my horsey feet back under me.

Little did I know that in a short year, she would transform the way I think about horses, the way that I train horses, and the way that I view myself. She has been both an immense confidence booster (despite having my first fall off of a horse in 11 years off of her back in May) and a constant teacher. I put all the work on her myself, just like I did with Angel... and the most important? She made me happy. Truly, deeply happy, in the same way that Angel made me happy.

Things have not always been easy with her, nor will they ever be. She is extremely opinionated (birds of a feather, I guess...), has a tendency to digress to "mustang" if she doesn't get the right amount of attention (though she never seems to forget anything I've taught her under saddle, even if I go 3 months between rides), and is not inclined to be a "more than one person" horse... but she's honest, and she respects you if you call her bluff.

Though I didn't believe my father then, I know now that Angel left me for a reason, and that reason was Bronwyn. Bronwyn needed me and if I had still had Angel, I might never have even seen her, nevermind had the space, time or mindset to bring her onto the farm and work with her. I still tear up when thinking about Angel and everything she represents to me in my journey as a horsewoman, but I have come to the understanding that those were the events that needed to happen, that she had played her role, changed my life the way that it was meant to, and then made way for another horse that could teach me more than she could.



There is not a day that goes by that I don't miss Angel, but I am blessed to have her "living on" in my barn through Ari and Rex, who each play their own special role in my life, and have their own lessons to teach me, and in the case of Ari, are already teaching lessons to 4H kids who don't have the privilege of their own horses.

I can only be thankful for the time that I did get to spend with Angel while she was here, and the lessons that I learned, and the fact that she renewed my love for horses and made me passionate once again.

Please share the horse that changed YOUR life in the comments, I'd love to hear about others who learned those life lessons.