Great site!!Well my daughter Simone has just joined here and she is riding a clinic with Josepha on Thursday, so I decided to come and play too...
I learnt to ride bareback when I was 4 years old and rode until I was about 20. My lifelong dream has been to have my own horse as the one I had as a child was simply mine because no one else wanted him.
When I turned 50 about 3 years back, we had just moved to a property with 5 stables and I bought Simone a horse for her birthday - and then began my little episode of rescuing a few old paddock ornaments -
first it was a Tara, a 20yo American Saddler whom I bought to ride, but soon discovered she had back problems due to early training issues, as well as psychological issues, so now she enjoys her retirement. She is an 'angel horse' or 'old spirit' and this is probably her last life on earth, She is extremely giving to both her humans and other horses and tires herself out easily, thus she has monthly crystal and energy healing sessions, but I dont know how much longer she will last - she is tired.
Then along came Irish - a horse advertised on the internet with no name, no age - he looked as though he needed love so I bought him. Found out he was 20, not 12 -15 as I had thought, has been very badly abused in the past and after a month of riding him, with good food, he became unrideable and attacked us if we even tried to lunge him! I named him Irish Cream and we took him right back to the beginning and he has had nearly 2 years of mainly leaisure, with groundwork and some lunging and long-reining. He is now an absolute honey and a friend of mine who is hosting Josepha's clinic here will be trying to see if he may accept being ridden bitless (he was also injured on his back so we are not sure he will allow us to ride him).
Apart from that we have the mare we rescued 3 days before she foaled. Her foal is now 2 years old and has been living out on a farm for 6 months to learn horse-manners and grow up a bit. She will come back when she is 3 for us to start groundwork with her. Simone currently rides her mom, Olga.
Then we have Taba Daja, an 8yo warmblood mare with her 3 week old foal. I bought her for me to hack out on occassionally once baby is weaned and for Simone to ride when Olga, who is about 20, retires.
We also have 3 miniature horses with whom we would like to do carriage driving.
I am very interested in alternative therapies such as crystals, herbs, flower essences etc and combine them in our lives everyday. One thing I am developing is rhythm beads and mane beads for horses which will incorporate crystals appropriate to the horses needs. I am busy with ones for dogs at the moment too.
Many of us are pretty much on our own as we explore this way of approaching our horses -- I'm envious of your having a team built in!)
for Simone and Olga
for Josepha.