My husband's horse - Shasta - was supposedly a divorce sale. She was 8 at the time and clearly had some english training, but was being sold by a western horse trader who I don't think knew the value of her. This was her sales text:
15H Beauty. Ridden both english and western. Been jumped and done reining. Very well trained mare. Works well off leg and seat ques. Great in the arena and on the trail. Fun to ride, very smooth with nice rhythm to her gaits, but has a bit of energy and likes to go so a confident rider is best. Lots of potential in this mare to take you far. Sweet personality, loves attention and easy to handle.
She doesn't neck rein so I doubt the reining training. I think they just threw this in to appeal to their usual western customers. I test rode her for about 30 seconds and claimed I wanted her. She was fast and opinionated with lots of buttons installed and just so much fun. I actually let my husband have her and it turns out that was for the best. She loves him. She tolerates me and knows I bring her food, but she truly loves him. They claimed she was a QH, but she's not registered and we have no information on her sire/dam. I would actually guess she's a mix of QH and Morgan or Arabian. She's a bit too fine for a QH. We seriously have no history past this.
For Dijon, I have some vague history. I bought him from a doctor. I don't remember 100% why she was selling him, but I think she wanted something kid safe and he's not. She told me that his previous owner had him for years and used him only for trail rides. That owner cowboyed him a lot and he came out of this convinced that he should go fast all the time and will have a complete mental meltdown if another horse is in front of him or going faster than him. His registration is gone so I know nothing else. I think he must have been registered at some time though because he has been trained to park out on command and his feet are horribly conformed in a fashion similar to TWH that were shown with all the foot torture they do in that show world. He's also terrified of stall cleaning implements in the way those horses often are since the unscrupulous trainers treat them
terribly. Since random, unregistered horses don't usually get taught to park out on command, I imagine he was shown.
 |
| At the ranch. |
I probably have the most information on Nilla and even what I do have is a mix of exaggerations and dead ends. She's registered though her papers have been "lost" so I didn't get them. She was foaled 3/14/2004. UCD is University of California at Davis. They have a mule breeding operation and students doing agriculture, equine studies, and other degrees will go through raising a mule foal. They're all sold at the end and Nilla's raiser bought her. She was brought back to their cattle ranch and used very minimally for years. I bought her when the ranch managers were moving and selling off most of their stock. I don't know her dam or sire and the AMA's website is useless at giving this information. The previous owners are also useless at giving information as they pretty much stopped answering any of my emails as soon as they got paid. I don't particularly care about papers so I've moved on.
 |
| Nilla and Dijon |
Putting this post together has made me realize I don't have any pictures of all three together. I'll have to try to remedy this sometime.
