Okay, so this mare has a really special story. for those of you who have been following her, look how much we have improved! (Vee) I started dressage and eventing almost exactly eight months ago, after having a strictly hunter back ground. but at the time I switched I was absolutely terrified of this mare. if you can’t tell from the photos, she is very small, only about 15.2 but can jump the moon, and she is and ex-chaser ottb, that being said, she can jump anything out of stride, at a dead gallop, which was how she preferred to do things. I had owned her (I will explain more about how I got her in the second paragraph) at this point for about 10 months or so, having heard that I should get rid of her, put her down, do anything but keep her, by in total 6 different AA circuit hunter trainers, and I was ready to throw her out and start looking for a new horse, so I took her to my vet with my mom to get an estimate of how much to put her up for sale for, well, my vet had called her trainer, (now mine as well) to help her get a better idea, after looking at her papers, her trainer asked me to hop on her so she could see her move, and so she could see how she was at jumps etc. so, as unwilling as I was, I tacked her up, and warmed up along the rail. within the first 15 minutes of her watching my mare and I, she had us going over crossrails, and we were working as a team with only that, granted she was still rushing, and not listening to me like she does now, but I could at least transition, and bring her somewhat back to me after a fence, a once impossible feat. Now as you can see, we are eventing at recognized events, at the moment we are only running novice, hoping to move up in the fall. But with that you have to remember, eight months ago, I couldn’t ride my horse. Now we are scoring in the low 30′s in our event tests, our sj and xc is still at mock 10 speed, but it is controlled. we have become more of a team. I went from hating this mare, more than pretty much anything, to her being my heart and soul. I can remember when we first started rebuilding our relationship, my trainer said to me “you have to give her time, remember, you did hate her.” Once we had our relationship rebuilt, we started moving forward in our riding. About a month ago, we were xc schooling out at a farm in Vass, NC, and it had previously snowed, so the footing wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad enough to not go out, we were doing a jump into the water and cantering out, and our first time through, we were cantering out the back side, and we had began to make a wide sweeping turn, when her feet shot out from under her, and we both went down, this being the first time I had ever had a fall with a horse, I panicked, (I mean that is my best friend, what am I going to do if she broke a leg?) I jumped up crying and panicking, that she was hurt, and the first thing my trainer said to me was “I’m glad you were able to have that learning experience, and I’m so glad to see, that you could have cared less about yourself, all you  cared about was Misty.” she then went on to say, “not only do you love that  horse more than anything, she loves you too, if only you could have seen, how hard she fought not to fall on you, you were her only concern, just like she was your’s. remember that partnership we have been working on? well you have a pretty great one, that mare loves you. You are that one person she clicks with” Hearing that was probably the best thing anyone could have possibly said to me.

The story of how I got her is short, but it is sweet. Misty had actually belonged to a friend of mine, before the woman I got her from gave her to me. They bred her and now have one of her babies, but she was having the same problems I was, the only speed Misty knew, was full speed, meaning brakes were out of the question. which is why they had gotten rid of her, just like I almost did. Well, the woman who they sold her to, didn’t do anything with her, except let her sit around in a field. I met this lady because I would occasionally ride my gelding in her ring, and she had tried to convince me to buy Misty for months, but never offered to let me get on her. Well, I one day convinced her to let me get on the mare, and while she was super quick with me, she didn’t try to get me off, like most of the other people who had ridden her, which gave this woman even more reason to try and get me to buy her, which just wasn’t in he picture for my family, she was a GREY, THOROUGHBRED, MARE. Which generally, isn’t a good combination. It was getting around christmas time, and this woman was just running out of space, and time to do something with Misty. So she called me one afternoon, and offered to give her to me, and of course, how could the 14-15 year-old horse crazy girl not to take this perfect free mare. (at the time, I hadn’t really discovered her bolting at fences issue.) So I convinced my parents, and the next thing I knew, I had a little white fleabitten head peeking around the corner, in the pasture outside my kitchen window.

please judge horse, and rider!