by Chelsa
Here is Samantha, 12 years old, showing Belle's beautifully arched neck. |
Samantha has really
wanted to train a baby horse for quite a while. It all started, I
think, when she was 8 years old. Some stray donkeys showed up on our
property one day and we ended up keeping the baby boy named
Chico, who had never been trained or ridden. He was a gray and white
pinto. She would spend hours out with him in the pasture playing with
him and training him. All by herself she worked with him until
he was rideable. We have a cute picture of her on him all saddled up
with a bit and everything. He was so cute and small, but we
ended up getting rid of him because he was dangerous to have around
the other animals. He would chase them and bite them while he was
playing. He almost killed our goat Milkshake. Just for your
information, male donkeys are not good guard donkeys! Only the
females will protect goat and sheep herds.
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Samantha, 8 years old, has Chico all saddled up and ready to go. Doesn't he look so cute and harmless? |
When
Samantha was 10 yrs old, she got Roman, who was the perfect horse for
her at that time. And she happily rode him for quite a while and was
content with that. But after a year or so she began to get ideas of
training a baby horse. Of course she still wanted to keep Roman and
ride him in her Playdays and around the farm, but she wanted to find
a mare to buy and breed.
Samantha, age 11, riding Roman at the Hawley Playday |
After much looking she found Ginger, a 16
year old registered Quarter Horse/Thoroughbred who was very gentle
and ride able. We tried numerous times to breed her, but because of
her age and her having never been bred before, she could not get
pregnant. So Samantha began looking at other options.
Ginger grazing in our pasture. |
We
had taken Ginger to Lester Galbreath in Albany, Texas several times
to breed her. He was a very nice man who was in the business of
breeding and selling horses. He had showed us several of his babies
out in the pasture after they were born. After we had so much trouble
with Ginger, we asked him if he had any fillies left for sale. He did
not have any at the time, but he called us back about a month later
to offer Samantha a little yearling bay filly named, Belle, for $400.
It ended up that she was one of his best babies that he didn't want
to part with, but had to because it was just too expensive to keep
her because of the drought. Samantha was SO EXCITED to hear that. She
had her heart set on Belle and bought her as quickly as she possibly
could.
Here is Samantha, Lester, and Belle in Albany. This is September 5th and we're getting ready to take Belle home! |
Now
that Samantha has Belle, she believes that Belle is the BEST HORSE IN
THE WORLD!
wow!! didn't know yall had belle. how exciting!!
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