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Thank you so much! We LOVE your website!

I want to share our story with you…this is for people who rise above the challenges and still bring their horse home!!

We are new horse owners. Our daughter is 18, and a Senior in high school. Her beautiful horse Big Boy has been home with us for 2 months now.

A neighbor who owns a small horse farm had befriended my daughter two years ago. Our daughter learned a lot about horses from this woman, and looked up to her as a mentor. This woman helped us this past summer with our search to find the right horse for us. She told our daughter all summer long that when she found a horse, she could board it there at her farm.

Well, we finally found the right horse, after a lengthy process of searching! We were so excited! Big Boy is 16.3 hands, a Qtr Horse/Appaloosa cross. He is golden brown, and as big and sweet as could be! He is so calm and sound! We knew he was the right horse for us.

It was time to bring him home!! Our daughter had made arrangements with this person to use her horse trailer to bring Big Boy home and board him there. This person said her barn was now full, but had talked to another friend in a nearby town and we would be able to board our horse there. Great!

In the meantime, there were two young women in our lives who had turned mean, and became very critical of my daughter and her horsemanship skills. One of them was very resentful of my daughter getting a horse.

They started gossiping about my daughter non-stop and were quite rotten. They became like sharks, attacking her and tearing holes in her flesh. As her Mom, it broke my heart to see this unfold, and it made our lives very stressful. My daughter’s self-esteem began to plummet.

It made me very angry! We made a decision to part ways with those people, for our own wellbeing. Somehow these two young women had worked their way into our neighbor’s good graces. All of a sudden they were there at her farm all the time. I found this to be a bit unsettling. I have very good instincts and I have learned to trust them well.

Anyway, the day came to pick up our Big Boy! We were so excited!!! We went to our neighbor’s farm at the scheduled time and met another friend there, who had a nice truck and had generously offered to pick up Big Boy for us. We were just tingling with excitement and anticipation!! This was a lifelong dream for my daughter and I couldn’t believe it was happening!

Things turned sour really quick. Looking back, I still don’t understand it. Suddenly this woman had a fit, started hollering at our daughter, and at our friend. She made him unhitch the trailer and swore at him. This left my daughter in tears and in a broken, crumpled heap. We were completely shocked by what had just happened. My head was spinning….I couldn’t comprehend it. This woman got on the phone with her friend in the nearby town told her not to let us board the horse there!

Our friend with the truck was wonderful. He remained calm and insisted on taking us to go and visit the horse. It was a pretty solemn ride but we made it. I will never forget how kind and encouraging and supportive this man was to my daughter that night. Thanks to him, we put a deposit down on Big Boy, and went home feeling somewhat better…but still feeling quite traumatized. It would end up taking us a very long time to heal the wounds from the summer.

To make this long story shorter, we ended up bringing Big Boy home. We were completely unprepared for this! We had planned on boarding him and entering the world of horse ownership and horse care slowly and gradually. Now we had our own horse, but no place to put him.

I made some rather frantic calls to our local horse people, but had no luck finding a place to board him.

There was no place for Big Boy!

Thankfully we live out in the country, and we did what we had to do. Our home in the country was transformed into a small farm.

Thank goodness my husband is a great guy and an awesome Dad!! We put up an electrical fence (which Big Boy had at his old home) and started to build a 3-sided shelter! It was a flurry of activity and a lot of stress, but we did it!

I was afraid… Our daughter had the horse knowledge and experience riding, but we didn’t. This was a huge undertaking and honestly it was a bit terrifying!

Our daughter rolled up her sleeves and dug the holes herself for the wooden fence posts. We worked hard to make this happen. We had people encouraging us every step of the way and it meant so much.

Our daughter had some wonderful horse friends come over and help string the electrical fence (they have been so kind and supportive and we are so thankful for them!) Whew….we were getting there. Our friend with the truck was amazing. He donated the lumber for us. My husband cleared and worked the land with his big old tractor. The walls started to come up, thanks to our friend with the truck, who donated countless hours of his time to help us build.

The day came to go and get Big Boy and bring him home! Another wonderful friend we could trust offered to trailer Big Boy. She was calm and wonderful and very experienced with horses.

I will never forget that day when Big Boy arrived home! It was beautiful, positive and magical. The first thing he did in his new paddock was lay on his back and roll around in the dirt :) he was so happy!

Thanks to good friends who helped us, WE DID IT!!

We are more than proud of our daughter, who rose above all of the drama and the stress. She had been sabotaged in a series of events by some very mean people. BUT SHE KNEW SHE COULD DO IT….and she DID!!

My husband and I had faith in her and trusted her to step up and do this, and she has done it extremely well. Her horse has been very therapeutic in her healing process.

Two months later, Big Boy loves his new home here with us. Thanks to our friend with the truck, he has a nice barn now instead of a 3-sided shelter. Big Boy is happy and gets lots of TLC.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we would be horse owners! But thanks to some very kind people in our lives, who we will never forget, our daughter was able to make something good come out of something bad. Her childhood dream of having a horse of her own has come true! She loves her Big Boy and they are doing GREAT!!!

Please feel free to share this…if this story could help someone else have the courage and the faith to overcome obstacles and bring their first horse home!

C, New Hampshire USA

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