by Cowgirl on October 5, 2016
Well, just when everything is finally going good…the pony recovering from her tendon injury down at summer pasture with the two buckskins, and the older mares at home being used for weekly riding lessons…disaster strikes. Sunday we were at the farm after lunch, planning to work on rebuilding a fence, and so while we were there I went to let the mares out to graze. They ran out through the gate and into the grassy yard, and I noticed that Cricket went right to eating, but Daisy laid down and rolled. This seemed strange, and we usually watch them for abnormal rolling, which indicates stomach pain associated with colic. But I knew it couldn’t be colic, since they were just now being turned out on grass.
by Cowgirl on March 8, 2016
I wanted to post a collection of photos of my horse Rudy through the years, just to remember him by. He was the best horse in the world. I remember in high school I entered a writing contest and the title of my essay was “The Best Horse in the World”…I don’t remember everything I […]
by Cowgirl on November 2, 2015
Last week we had a special visit from my parents. They drove all the way from Idaho to Iowa pulling a gooseneck trailer with six horses in it, dropping off two at our place, staying overnight and spending the next day with us, then continuing on their way to two other siblings’ homes to deliver the rest of the horses. After 50 + years of ranching, my parents are finally retiring, selling their ranch and cattle, giving away most of their twenty-some horses and mules, and buying a house in town and a travel trailer to enjoy some southern winters and visits to grandkids.
by Cowgirl on April 12, 2014
You can never have too many horses, right? My sister from Idaho called me the other day and offered me her beautiful blue roan mare. I didn’t know what to say, other than, “Please and thank you.” Other things went through my head, such as how will I get her here, it’s twelve hundred miles to Iowa from Idaho, and I already have four horses that I don’t work with as much as I should! But there was no way I could turn her down.
by Cowgirl on March 29, 2012
It’s springtime, and babies are being born, and it makes me start wishing and hoping. No, we don’t have any expectant mares this year, but my folks out in Idaho have several mares that are bred to this Hancock bred blue roan stallion, Handmade Forever, for his first foal crop. They purchased the stud colt and two fillies from Keith Munn’s production sale two summers ago, and are really excited to see how this young stallion turns out. I’m looking forward to lots of baby pictures and celebrating spring as it should be.
When we purchased our new horses a few weeks ago, we knew we would have some work to do to get the foal registered and the papers edited to show our ownership of the mare. Whenever you’re buying a horse, it’s important to understand the registration process and what the requirements are for registering a horse. Some horses just aren’t registerable, and it’s important to know the difference, because a horse that is registered has added value. If you’ve never owned an American Quarter Horse and if you’re unfamiliar with the application process, this blog post might be a help to you.
by Cowgirl on September 13, 2011
News flash! We have new horses! We saw a classified ad, made a phone call, took a road trip in the rain, wrote a check, went back with the horse trailer, and look what we got: a sweet little buckskin mare and her four month old stud colt! This should come as no surprise if you know us well—we have been looking for a buckskin horse for about four years, and have skimmed through countless horse classifieds in search of the perfect one. And in true horse-collector’s fashion, we bought not one, but two!
Growing up, the horses that my Dad rode were always the best ones we had. They say wet saddle blankets make a good horse, and that was surely the case with Spider. Of Dad’s string of riding horses, Spider was one of the best. He was a big rangy gray gelding with size and strength and beauty being his best qualities.
My mom used to sing this song to us when we were little, and I loved this version by Catherine Raney, from the movie Flicka. I wanted to show you the horse photos that I took last week on my parents’ ranch in Idaho, and thought this song would best accompany them while you browse through them. I never met a horse I didn’t like, but some of these are plain gorgeous.
by Cowgirl on April 24, 2011
One thing I love about horses is their individual personalities. Just as every person in the world has his own characteristics, every horse is wired differently. And just like every good group of friends has a goofball in it, the horse bunch I grew up with had its own class clown, Gunner.
by Cowgirl on March 13, 2011
I always think about my black colt this time of year. If you read my previous post about saying goodbye to a horse, and my horse poems I wrote about his death, you understand part of the story. But I would like to tell the rest of the story and give more of a background about this horse that was so special to me.
by Cowgirl on November 25, 2010
The prettiest horse on my parent’s ranch in Idaho is a 2 year old buckskin AQHA filly named Docs Honeycomb. She is the 2008 baby out of their big bay mare, Steel Hickory, by their buckskin stallion Docs Cold Cash.
by Cowgirl on November 24, 2010
I was visiting with my dad the other day about horse stories from my childhood. I don’t remember some of the earliest things of course, so my dad was filling me in on some history of horses I remembered but didn’t know a lot about. It is so interesting to hear another viewpoint on things that I only remember from a child’s point of view, and I love thinking back on those old days.
by Cowgirl on November 22, 2010
My folks have a really nice Quarter Horse mare named Steel Hickory, whom they bought as a three year old and have gotten some of their best foals from. But for some reason, she hasn’t had a foal the last two years, and she has spent the whole time living fat and happy on their irrigated pastures.
by Cowgirl on October 13, 2010
I talked to my sister on the phone today. She was excited to share her big news with me: she bought a stud colt and two fillies at a production sale last weekend! We had a good hour of “horse talk” and she told me all about every horse they looked at.
by Cowgirl on September 2, 2010
I was just a kid when I went to a Pitzer Ranch sale for the first time. I believe it was actually an all-school field trip—that will give you an idea of the rural place I was raised in and what we did for fun back then! I remember sitting in the stands and calculating in my head how much money I had in my bank account and how much of my allowance I would need to save weekly in order to buy a colt of my own. I have always been inspired by the Two Eyed Jack horses.
by Cowgirl on August 18, 2010
I’ve been musing recently on where the old-style horses have gone. You know the kind I’m talking about, the rawboned, high-headed, ewe-necked, long legged, full-stampede mode movie horses that captivated the world when TV made its black and white debut. The vintage horses nobody hears about anymore.
by Cowgirl on July 27, 2010
I knew I wanted a good riding horse. So I picked the first foal by our Two Eyed Jack grandson stallion and the last foal out of our Three Bars bred Quarter Horse mare, Tasha Jo. This colt was a graying bay roan named Rudy, and I chose him because he acted nice and was built nice.
by Cowgirl on June 16, 2010
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want a horse of my own. When I was about five, I picked out a mare named Blondie from my dad’s bunch of horses, and claimed she was mine. I don’t know where she came from, but she was a registered Quarter Horse. She became my first horse.
If you’re wondering how I got to be horse crazy, the photo above serves as an explanation. That is my mom, at about six months, on her pony Mickey, with her dad at her side. My mom grew up with horses, and her favorite was a horse named Old Paint, whom she kept from childhood until after she was married
