A Baby Boomer Dreams of Arabian Horses - The Search Part 8

Part 1 of the Baby Boomer Series

Part 1 of The Search

It wasn't until after I got that Arabian filly home that I realized how small the horse was. I guess I hadn't really been paying all that much attention because she was only two. But getting her home around my other horses, it was obvious that the horse was small even for a two-year-old.

Size seemed to be driving the market at the time. But it was never (and still is not) a criteria for me in making my breeding decisions. Conformation, type, quality, disposition, beauty, all of those things were far more important to me than size. That may be one of the reasons that I hadn't noticed Lilly was really a peanut of a horse as well. So while I was alarmed because she was small, it was more about the fact I hadn't noticed than about changing my mind about this filly as a breeding horse. She was a beautiful correct mare with great bloodlines.

One of the first things we did with the filly when we got her to our place was come up with a name. None of us could bring ourselves to refer to her as Hoohoo. Instead she was simply "the filly" until we found something that we all agreed upon. We 'tried" lots of name on her but nothing seemed to fit. I think it was Lindsay who finally came up with Lilly. The horse has been wearing it ever since.

Because the horse was so small, there was no way I was going to plan on breeding her the following year. I wanted to give her as much time to grow as possible. While there haven't been any studies done that say breeding a mare at three will hinder her growth, I didn't want to take any chances. The vet agreed.Lilly was going to be a pass for our first year of breeding with Legs.

Shortly after we got her home, the breeders we'd purchased her from sold their farm and moved to southern Oregon. They called and left me their new phone number before they left just in case I had any problems with the transfer of Lilly's papers. I wasn't as worried about that I was wanting to keep track of the Dare Malik daughter.

I called back the breeder from Kings Gate Farm to find out the status on the sale of the yearling Gamaar bred filly. I still wasn't sure if I even wanted the filly or not. But my advice to Betty kept rolling around in my head. "If you can't get the mother, then the daughter would be the next best thing." Knowing what the mother and grandmothers and aunts and great aunts of this filly were like stopped me from totally writing her off.

Again, I was told that there was a deal pending. It wasn't a definite because the buyer needed to buy a farm. She was boarding her horses now and couldn't afford to add another horse under those circumstances. The breeder seemed to think that there was a possibility that this sale could collapse. So again, she asked me to call back in a few weeks.

As the days passed by I continued my inner debate about this filly. Obviously she'd not stolen my heart but as a breeding horse I just couldn't walk away from her. I drug my feet about calling the breeder and a few weeks turned into months. I figured she was long gone but called the breeder anyway.

It turned out that the deal had gone south and the filly was still at Kings Gate. Not only was she there, but the breeder wanted her gone. She offered me the filly for a fraction of the original asking price. Still unsure,I told her I'd need to come back and take another look on Sunday. I needed to talk with Dave to confirm that he could go and then I'd get back to her.

When I called her back to confirm she told me to bring my horse trailer. If I didn't plan on taking her home with us, not to come at all. Her husband had been furious at the offer she had made me. It wasn't anywhere even near the cost of her sire's stud fee let alone what they had into her. The injured breeder was having lots of trouble healing and just didn't want to be bothered anymore. She wanted the filly gone.

Well, that really threw me for a loop. I poured over the video and talked with my friends some more. Everyone thought I should walk away but that nagging little voice inside keep at me. Strange how that voice can push sometimes!

To be continued................

Part 9

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