I found some photos of some of my past horses and wanted to introduce you to them. :-) This is the story of meeting my first horse.
For years, I had dreamed about my "one day horse," both when I slept at night and during every waking hour. It was so easy to slip away and let my mind take over. Whether tucked into bed or sitting in school, I could feel the smooth coat under my hands, I could smell shavings and hay, and hear thrumming hoof beats as the vision of the horse I didn't have yet pranced through my thoughts.
When I finally met my "one day horse" she was 6 years old and barely halter-trained. The owner bred Morgans for endurance racing for years before being diagnosed with cancer. Finally, she decided to sell her horses as she no longer had the resources to care for them and manage her illness as well. My soon-to-be-horse had lived her 6 years of life well loved, yet untrained. When I saw her for the first time she was galloping around the pasture, tail up and snorting, in the blustery fall weather. She was fiery and fast, and I was completely in love.
My Mom and I went on a cold day in October to pay for her and make arrangements to take her home. I was nervous and full of anxiety that this really was all a dream, that my mind was playing tricks on me. My daydreams of horses were always so real, was this one of them?
Yet, it wasn't. We handed over the check and she handed me the lead rope. It was a moment like the Velveteen Rabbit must have had when he turned from a stuffed toy to a real bunny. That moment when everything became brighter, more intense, real. My "one day horse" had materialized and she was the most perfect thing that had ever walked through my life. A well bred, well fed, untrained, spirited, Morgan mare.
From that day, my life has never been the same. She fulfilled in me every childhood dream I had ever had. She was my everything. The absolute climax of my 14 years of existence. The intangible had finally become tangible, and her name was Beaming Joey.
"Everything that is real was imagined first."
- Velveteen Rabbit / Margery Williams