So how did we get here?

Hanna.

In one short word… Hanna.

My daughter IS a horse person. I don’t know how, but she came into the world obsessed with horses. Her first toys were horses, her first cartoons were about horses. Her first books were horses. Her whole world has been horses.

For 12 years my husband and I told her no. No, we are NOT getting a horse. And then there was Runaway.

In an effort to get more horse time, Hanna had started working at a training barn. She was cleaning stalls, feeding, taking lessons, and learning some training while she was there. The trainer at the barn was participating in a “trainer’s challenge” put on by Blaze’s Tribute Equine Rescue in Oklahoma. He was given an untrained horse to work with for 140(ish) days. At the end of the time there was a show, and an auction to get the horses adopted. His horse was Mackenzie. She was a really tough horse to work with because she had experienced a lot of trauma in her life. She did end up getting an amazing home from the auction, where she is well loved to this day.

The whole time he was working with Mackenzie, unbeknownst to me, Hanna was scoping out the rescue’s website. AND, had fallen in love with one horse. For months she had been silently pining for this horse, knowing her parents were NEVER going to let her have a horse.

We went with the trainer to the challenge to help out, and watch. While we were unloading and getting her stall set up Hanna came running over to me breathless.

“Mom! MOM! MOM! Runaway is here! I didn’t know he would be here, but he’s here!”

Now, this is the first time I’ve heard the name Runaway, and I have no idea what she’s talking about. Turns out, a couple stalls down, the horse she’s been dreaming about on the internet is actually part of the trainer’s challenge. He wasn’t there yet, but his stall had his name and picture and a description. Sure enough, not long after, here comes Runaway. A tiny bay gelding, with a mane and tail to die for.

Please understand, I still know NOTHING about horses. I still only feel comfortable around a horse if they are one side of a fence and I’m on another. I have NO intentions AT ALL of owning a horse.

Hanna begged and begged through the weekend. Her trainer talked to me about it. I talked to Ryan, who happened to be in the middle of a fishing tournament and wasn’t thrilled to be interupted by talk of buying a horse.

What happened next is how we started down this path.

Runaway did not sell in the auction. He didn’t get one bid. Hanna couldn’t have been more happy.

Her trainer is friends with the owners of the rescue, and without telling us he went and asked if he could bring Runaway back to his barn to give us a little more time to make a decision. I was a little pissed, but… with a little added time and pressure from Hanna, and a deal worked out with the trainer to work off his board… we finally said yes.

Hanna became Runaway’s person on her 12th birthday.

Things didn’t work out at that barn for long. Runaway was moved to a much better situation, and then to a barn closer to home over the next year or so. Hanna connected with new people and pulled resources into her life to help her train and make Runaway a good partner.

In 2020 Hanna applied and was accepted as a youth trainer in the same trainer’s challenge where she had met Runaway.

She chose a little gray mare from the horses available, and began her own journey through 140 days of training her. The little gray mare was named Grey Goose. She spent the entire pandemic working with and training Goose. We were very lucky that we were boarding at a small family farm (we were the only boarders), so it was a very safe situation. I worked so hard to not like that little gray mare, but it was hopeless. As much as Hanna knew Runaway was her horse, I knew Goose was mine.

Only trouble was… the auction.

After the showcase came the auction. The auction started, people started bidding, and bidding and bidding, and I was NOT going to let someone else take my horse from me. It was an insanely emotional day. I really thought I might lose her. Our last bid was the predetermined amount we said we were willing to spend. I held my breath, waiting for them to out bid me and for me to lose my horse. But it didn’t happen. I won!! Goosie Face was MINE!! I got to take her home.

During the show another horse caught my husband’s eye. Of course, it was the winning horse, who ended up selling for over TEN THOUSAND dollars. Needless to say, we did not buy that horse lol. But he had the bug then. He wanted a horse of his own. We talked to the owners of the rescue and they showed us another horse. A gaited horse, who had been a trail horse for an elderly lady. She could no longer care for him, and had relenquished him to the rescue. Ryan kind of fell in love with him… Hanna and I were a little iffy. He seemed a little spooky, and we’d only just met him. But Hanna has skills and Ryan was determined so we brought Goose and Hamilton home that day.

Now we are boarding 3 horses. How did that happen?!

The summer of 2020 Hanna was on Facebook, looking at the kill pen site when she saw a horse. A giant OTTB who was “heavily bred” and “fast on barrels”. I wish I still had that picture, because with one picture that horse captured our hearts. It was ridiculous though. I did not want a baby horse. I didn’t even really want ANOTHER horse. We were already paying board for 3!!

I messaged our friend where we boarded, asked her if she’d seen that horse. She already had her eye on her. We talked and came to a bit of a deal, that if we (collectively) got her, we’d let our friend have the baby and then when it was old enough to wean we’d take the mare and she could keep the foal. And just like that… there was another horse in our lives.

Our friends went down to Texas, picked her up from the kill pen and brought her home.

They took her to the vet after she came out of quarantine, and guess what?! She was not heavily bred, in fact, she wasn’t bred at all. Turns out she needed a good dose of wormer, and some exercise.

So… we worked out a new deal with our boarding facility friends, and the mare became ours. We named her Summer. Summer is a unicorn. She’s a thoroughbred, which I thought I would NEVER have. She’s the sweetest, most gentle horse. She fast on the barrels just like they said. She’s now Hanna’s barrel horse, but she’s such a good girl, Ryan rides her in fun shows when he decides to go, and she took me, a novice rider, for my first lope off lead. It’s infuriating what ends up at the kill pen… but that’s a whole other post.

Last fall we managed to get fencing put up at our place, aquired shelters, put in automatic waterers and brought our horses home. <3 By this point, Runaway was doing drill team and was already staying at our place in a small corral we made for him.

Since everyone has been home Hanna has done another trainer’s challenge. That horse sold in auction to an amazing woman who loves him more than most things in life. From the trainer’s challenge Hanna picked up her first client horse, and trained him for 30 days. She came to some conclusions during that time, but more on that later, and then there was Delilah.

One day I thought it would be fun to go check out the local horse auction. Just to see how it worked. HA. I don’t know why, but we brought a trailer with us. I mean, how else could this have ended?

We ended up bidding on Miss Delilah. An unbroke, unhandled red dunn. She’s a bit of a wild child, but we are taking it slow with her, and she’s coming around. She’s already made a ton of progress. Hanna’s doing most of the work. Ryan is handing out most of the cookies, and she’s starting to be a pretty friendly little mare.

And that’s how we got where we are now. It’s been a crazy year. I see these “Pandemic before and after” memes on the internet. People have completely transformed their homes, their yards, their lives… us? We got 4 new horses and completely changed our herd.

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