First Meeting....

Gambol (white Anglo Arab) & Sonny (Standard Bred)

“Who is that horse?” I eagerly asked my cousin Sue, while we were standing outside the pasture watching the herd graze in their golden, oat filled California pasture. He is drop dead gorgeous! Dark bay with a straight back, the young horse was nose to nose with another colt around his age, eagerly eating the long stalks of oats as fast as he possibly could. “Oh, you could never afford him” she said. “He is out of the owner’s Morgan mare and was a surprise one morning. His dad was just a 2 year old arab colt who jumped the fence and was out the next day. Then this little guy appeared, surprise! That is why they named him Mystery”.

I was living in a studio apartment working a 40 hour job and putting myself through school and was in no position to think about buying a horse. I had been horse crazy all my life but after being thrust into a life of poverty from my parents nasty divorce when I was 10, I gave up any dream and hope of ever owning one myself. Now I was almost 30, just finishing my degree, and since reunited with my cousin had rediscovered my love for horses. She was teaching me how to care for horses and ride; first on her old arab gelding Gambol, then later on her high spirited standard bred, Sonny. I was grateful to my cousin for putting up with my presence every weekend; knowing she had a busy life with two kids of her own; but we were becoming great friends and I knew she was horse crazy too and welcomed the escape.

The following winter, the herd of 19 horses living on 100 acres started to look skinny. Susan told me the owners were going through a very nasty divorce and the wife had left. The ranch owner was not caring for the horse or feeding them; most had been left by irresponsible boarders or collected by his soon to be ex wife and he didn’t want to bother with them. Susan and I started to bring bales of hay up every weekend and feed the herd. One day we had her two horses tied to the rail feeding and grooming them. I looked up in time to see a dark bay jump the pasture fence and come to us. It was Mystery, and he was hungry. We threw him a bale of hay and he ate but would not let us touch him. When we put her horses back, he followed. We were both amazed he would leave the security of the herd to seek us out for food and were getting more and more concerned about the condition of the herd.

Soon after, Susan frantically called me on the phone. “Jim is taking all the horse down to auction and selling them for meat prices!”, she said. “He said you can have Mystery for $100 over the meat price…about $400”. I was not set up in my life to own a horse. “I’ll help you break him and then we can sell him to someone who will finish training him and give him a good home”. I agreed to it and that weekend drove out to hand over the money. Mystery was inside the solid walled round pen. When I drove up, I could hear him screaming and slamming against the wall. Peering over the wall I could see him rearing and striking the fence with his feet. “Oh Lord, what am I getting myself in to”? Still, I wrote the check, thinking it would only be a temporary situation and that I would find him a good home. Little did I know this would be a lifetime of experiencing a partnership with a horse of my own….