Tuesday dark morning
feeding time
5:45 AM…a presence is felt. I saw a big tree branch move. hmmm
5:46am..I get Lucky Star and take him to barn.
5:48 AM…an alarmed whinny
6:00 AM…Discover a strange horse in the yard. She came and met Lucky Star. I had turned Lucky Star out in the yard overnight because we had such a nice ride. This is all Lucky’s fault!
Mare Nicely fed..feet ok…in good shape
6:05 AM…Horse appears calm..put halter on and lead to barn-long beautiful neck may belong to saddlebred. In stall.
8:00AM …call county Sherrif and local police
12:00am…call spouse to get horse more hay and check water
4:00PM… call local police-no one has inquired.
4:45PM…home.. horse is doing fine
5:00pm…Turn horse out in rectangle pen. She floats around the pen. how beautiful. Hmmm, she might be an Arabian…no….
5:45PM play with horse in rectangle pen. I’m impressed. She is not frightened. She has been treated with love. She responds to pressure when I ask different parts of her body to move. She loves being petted and rubbed.
6:15pm…let her loose again in pen
6:30PM…other horses are ignoring her now and I decide to turn her out.
6:31pm…she gallops to and fro. She gallops to me and comes to a stop right at my feet. I flinch, but hide it.
7:00pm… two young man come to the barn. One of them is owner!
7:15pm…much chatting about her. Young man owner is very likable and has been doing all the right things for her. He answers test questions well
7:16pm…I discover she is to go to auction on Saturday. WHAT!
7:18pm… young man asks if she can stay here till Saturday. We just disdiscussed how he needs money to fix his truck, his only transportation to work. He needs #300. He offers me $50 to let her stay here. I agree. She has had 1 1/2 weeks of training with an Amish trainer. She has been ridden. Young man has sat on her, but sez she needs an experienced rider because she is very green.
8:00pm…I report this to a group on Facebook-asking for help to raise $300 so he can keep the horse..or someone buy the horse
8:02pm much Facebook chat
9:30pm..”This is a stolen horse” comes on Facebook. WHAT! We all ask about the circumstances of this allegation. Nothing from reporter. I feel like I’ve been hit by a sledge hammer. My instincts and talk with young man owner say to me, “something is wrong here” I’m sticking with the young man. A horse tells a lot about the owner. This horse loves her owner.
10:00pm…alleger says, “I wanted to sue them, but didn’t have the money”. hmmm, doesn’t sound like a stolen horse to me
Wednesday – All Day Anger Issues at “Stolen Alleger”. I manage to keep quiet. I delete the Facebook Postings. 6:00 am…Go out to feed horses. New horse does not appear
6:10am… check out the number of horses my neighbor has. Oh there she is. She has jumped the fence and is in with 5 geldings. oh my! She is doing fine.
8:00am – I report stolen allegation to police. Animal control officer logs in to Facebook and joins the group. This is a closed group, people can’t join. Apparently, law enforcement can join any closed group. He sees this “stolen reporter” is a friend of a friend of his daughter. He’ll check this out!
8:10am..called neighbor. She’s at work and so is husband. when she gets home, she catches the mare and leads her into her stall
7:30pm…Young man, nice wife and 18 month old baby comes to see their horse. He had to take bill of sale to police. His parents took bill of sale that afternoon. This is not a registered horse. He bought her when she was about two years old.
7:31pm…We chat about stolen horse and she is now at neighbor. Horse was boarded, boarding owner told him that she had got a great deal on 3-4 year old hay and was feeding that to his horse. Also only one round bale…other horses were not letting his horse eat. He stopped paying when nothing was done. Horse was then locked up. He and family came and stole his own horse and took to new place for boarding. Horse has been in new place for 5 months and all was well.
We drove 5 miles to get to neighbor’s pasture. There is no gate between our pastures.
Neighbor agrees to keep horse while we find a new owner.
Owner says it takes four grown men to get mare into the trailer. Oh great. And the young horse was to be for him and his child. oh great…
Neighbor also has fallen for the horse. Husband has told her No…No…No! They just found out she is pregnant and he doesn’t want her messing with new horse in this environment where there is no hay for sale. He’s worried about having enough hay for five horses.
I tell the young man that I will come up with the $300. I offer to pay him there, but he sez won’t take money unless he works for it. See why I like this young man. I wasn’t going to take his $50 for the horse to stay. That was a test to see if he would give me the money when he needs money desparately to fix his truck
Weekend…I’m at Saturday and Sunday Ranch Horse Event
Monday is a holiday.
8:00am I search for an opening in another neighbor’s fence. There is an opeing, hidden by a big tree branch. I get the saw and get rid of the tree limb. There’s enough room that a horse and human can walk thru.
10:00am… I call this neighbor and ask for permission the lead a horse thru his property. I haven’t chatted with him for about 5 years.
10:30am..I go into the pasture with 5 dominant geldings and the mare. I take my carrot stick as I know what will happen. I caught the mare and got the halter on before being attacked by the geldings. There’s one gelding that wants to charge and bite the mare. Luckily the mare wasn’t too frightened when I slung the carrot stick rope at them. Finally was able to get out of the pasture.
11:00…lead the horse to my pasture. Chat with the other neighbor for a while. Mare occasionally balked at leaving the geldings, Mostly she came along just fine. We walked by many scary things and she paid them no mind. She is a left brained extrovert, able to think things through
11:30am..Collapse into my recliner
Friday… Jenny Vaught comes and trains horse to get into trailer. It took her about 15 minutes. She did some other things that we do before trying for the trailer. I have two trailers and she loaded into both trailers. Then I got the horse and loaded her into both trailers.
Saturday 7:00am…Loaded mare into trailer and took off to Fair Play with Tony and Jenny Vaught for Obstacle Clinic.
Saturday PM… Everyone loves this horse.
I now own Miss America. She’s half Morgan, 1/4 Arab and 1/4 QH. She is 3 1/2 years old. She’s never had any vaccination shots. oh my…
The horse came and knocked on my door begging Lucky Star and I to save her from the auction!
Before that fateful Tuesday early dark morning, I thought my life was exciting. Now I know I was leading a dull life. I found real excitement
