So you're a horse lover,,,,,,were you born that way.

[wildoak]

Born with it is the only explanation. I grew up in Dallas with a mother who was afraid of horses (was kicked as a child). No one else in my family, aside from a distant cousin or so, has any love for horses. It's just what I wanted from as early as I can remember. I had some lessons on a very forgiving Welsh pony at 8 or 9, and finally got a grade mare when I was 10. Biggest day of my life LOL. Went on to QHs, showed some and spent every free moment at the barn growing up. It was an experience I cherish, one that most kids don't get now. We were there after school, weekends and during the summer most days from morning till end of the day. (talk about a built in babysitter

) We rode bareback, swam in the creek, raced, walked the trails and gossiped......and usually as a group we kicked butt at shows. There were probably 20-25 mostly girls boarding there, a good dozen out riding at any given time. This in the middle of Dallas. The neat thing is that most have continued the "habit" in one form or another from hunter jumper to minis to AQHA judges & top breeders........it's in your blood one way or another and I can't imagine being without it! Not bad for a bunch of city girls LOL.

Jan

Added - when I hit 40 I think my mom finally accepted that I wasn't going to outgrow it LOL.

 

[Frankie]

This has been awesome to read and the pictures you guys added are the best!!!!

 

[MiLo Minis]

Born with it. I can't remember ever not loving horses. I am never more at peace then when I am out in the barn or paddock amongst the horses. I spent a couple looooong years without them as an older teenager and that was the worst time of my life. As soon as I could arrange to have another I did and I will never be without them again if I have anything to say about it.

 

[Belinda]

Hi

Well like most of you I am from a family that has always had horses .. My Dad had Shetland Ponies when I was born , and continued to raise and show his Shetlands right up through the Decline in the Shetlands, he then turned to Miniatures along with his long time friends Mr.Vern Brewer and several others. During that time I was turning all my attention to Barrel Racing.. And being the competitive person I am

won many saddles and Championships including being the Arakansas State Champion . After retiring my horse and myself from Barrels I turned back to the Minatures and Shetlands..

I also showed dogs for many years as that is what my Mom was into, So I raised and Showed German Shorthair Pointers and Beagles and had over 25 home bred Champions .. During that time I owned several Pet Shops and Grooming and boarding Kennels. I had them in 3 states , boy was that way toooooo much work,,

OH! OH! What was I thinking.. <<LOL>>

So guess my whole life has been made up doing something with Animals .. In 1995 my Father turned over all his ponies and miniatures to me , so guess you could say I inherited his 50 + year breeding program. I now just enjoying training for other people and raising my foals.

Ok thanks for letting me go on about myself ..

 

[ruffian]

Had to be born with it. I was raised in the city. No horses within miles. Nobody else in my family is affected

, although one sister had one for a few years after she got married.

My favorite Christmas was when I was 4 and got my "Wonder Mare" - she's still in my attic

My favorite Birthday? When my brother bought me a black/white "western pony" Breyer. She's in my curio cabinet.

My favorite vacations? Spending one week a year for 4 years at my cousin's who had horses.

I used my Wonder mare saddle to ride on our German Shorthair pointer named Lady. (Sorry Belinda!!)

While in my teens, my friends had Davy Jone and Monkees, and Beatles posters on their walls, I had horse photos. The only boys on my walls happened to be in the picture with the horses. And some of them got cut out.

I got my first horse after being married for 2 years. Then got into mini's and the rest is history!

 

[Candice]

Interesting as my Mother and I were just discussing this very thing last weekend. I had to have been born with it as my family are NOT horse people and do not understand at all. They tried everything they could to squash it, then when I was 10 they caved (I'm the youngest of 6) and I started riding lessons at the college and when I was 13 I earned half the money for my first horse (Dad matched me) and paid the other half.

Horses are my life. My husband gets mad at me because I insist on feeding my horses before I eat and that means most nights I am not at the dinner table. He accuses me of putting the horses ahead of the family and that simply isn't true. Its just a matter of timing and the way it works out with our schedules.

I wish I had a less expensive addiction, but thats not in the cards!!!

 

[Scoopiedoo]

I was born this way. I can remember being in trouble for getting caught on the saddles on the saw horses at my babysitter's house when I was just little, but I was too little for her to let me ride the real horses, so I rode the imaginary horses instead! My first horse was a stick horse, then I got an 11 hh pony named Dusty when I was 5, outgrew him(obviously) by the time I was 12, and was horseless for a LONG time!! I was 27 when we got horses again and it started with 2. Now we have 16 and 3 foals due in the spring/summer!!

I remember my first ride on a "big" horse just like it was yesterday. We have a friend that had drafts that he worked in the woods with. Everyday, I would ask, Can I ride Bob or Betty today? I remember him teasing me for a LONG time before he FINALLY said yes! He lifted me up on to Bob's back and I was so excited to actually be on him that I didn't say a word about the fact that it felt like my legs were going to pop off from my hips. That horse was the sweetest giant I ever knew.

Jodi

 

[Riverdance]

I was born that way. My folks are not animal lovers

We only had a dog growing up and that was because my younger brother was really needy. I bugged them and bugged them for a horse, dog of my own, cat, anything. I took riding lessons,(was a member of girl scouts which I hated, but that was the only way to get a discount on riding lessons) had horse pictures and figurines all over the place in my room, but they never caved in.

It was less than a year after I married that I bought my first horse and got into hunter jumper. My folks thought I was crazy. They still do and I am now 56, divorsed and the proud owner of 40 Miniature horses.

I raise Tibetan Terriers (have 12 of them) and have 6 barn cats, two birds (an African Gray and a Cockatoo), a collie (as my feroious guard dog, she will lick everyone to death )

and a 3lb Yorkie. You think they should have given in when I was young?

 

[The Dynamic Duo]

I believe that I too was born that way. Loved animals from the

start. But then, I guess I kind of lost it for a while until I was 11 I think and went out to the barn I work at and fell in love with my horse, Kid.

 

[Kendra]

I'm so lucky. I was raised to be a horse nut, by my family of horse nuts ... well, not my dad, he just puts up with the rest of us!

 

[MBennettp]

I was born that way, my great grandfather made me a gift of a registered shetland foal when I was born. He was sold when I was 2 and I got another that I grew up with.

My grandfather and I were inseperable and he was the horse nut in the family. I can remember him coming to our house nearly every day to get his "horse fix". He taught me a lot about horses and until 2 months before his death he was with me and my horses as much as possible.

Neither of my parents were into horses at all and neither were my siblings but I always had 2 or 3 horses that I worked daily.

I have a 1/2 sister that we couldn't find for years but when we did finally find her, it was astounding how much alike she and I are. She also has had horses most of her life and still has a barn full. She raised her children on horseback and now her grandchildren are competing and winning.

Her 5 year old grandson just won his first high point saddle and is trying for another.

I have had horses all but 3 years of my life and I felt like part of me was missing for that 3 years. I hope to never again be without horses in my life.

Mary

 

[CyndiD]

Absolutely BORN with it!!!

My grandfather was a blacksmith most of his life till WWII and then he had to go to factory work...but he loved horses and it seems to have skipped a generation, my dad didn`t care much..but I SURE DO!!!!

 

[Magic]

Born with it, and it must have been some recessive, buried gene, because not a single person in my family has it, for generations back, except for a cousin (who won a big endurance race years ago and got a horse trailer, etc, that was cool). My first memories of horses were of a "pony-ring" that my parents let me ride, oh wow, was I hooked! Nobody in my family understood my obsession, but I did get to be around horses intermittently as I grew up, including Dad buying my a wild pony that I tamed on my own when I was six.

I never felt I had "enough" time with horses (is there EVER "enough" time with horses?) until my husband and I were able to buy our own horse-property and were able to keep our horses at home.

I get several horse monthly horse publications and read them cover-to-cover; I believe the learning never stops. Horses are a life-long endeavor for those of us born with (or aquired) "horse fever".

 

[Sandee]

My family had dogs but never horses. I'm, to this day, NOT a dog person. I've been told when I was the age of "able to sit up on my own" my older brother and sisters put me on the neighbors plow horse. I don't know if I asked to go or if they were trying to "get rid" of me but it seems I've been obsessed with horses ever since.

I have a picture of me when I was 4 or 5 in jodhpurs (a type of riding pants that I dearly loved to wear - not because I had a horse jut loved the pants). I can remember begging to ride the ponies at all the carnivals but then I thought every little kid did that (until my own came along).

My sister and I mooched rides off friends that had horses until I was a teenager and saved up enough to buy a horse. Owning them has been a here, gone and come again thing as I had family to raise over the years. My sis, however, has owned and shown horses ever since she was 10 and still does.

So I wasn't exactly "born into it" but I have loved horses all my life and still do. I'll have them now until I can't take care of them any more - hopefully that's a long time yet!

 

[joylee123]

[SIZE=12pt]My Mom always swore I'd been thrown into this life out of a pair of riding boots in another life

[/SIZE]

My first word spoken was "Horse" OH!

Funny thing is... no one in the family had ever had anything to do with horses. My mom would come to pick me up at the stables and if I was riding she'd lock the car door, she was so afraid of horses

Now my daughter comes by it honestly

. My big appy gelding had his head in the truck window checking her out when she as only 3mos old! She had her first horse ride on the same gelding at 4 months old and her first mini at 3 years old.The first ride on that little mare and the mare shook and April fell off. She started crying and I figured she'd never want on again... till I realized she was crying because she thought the ride was over

Joy

 

[macy--red carpet minis]

Born with it!

I rode my pony before I could walk, granted my sister or my mom were on there with me. My sister was riding horses for 5 years by the time I was born and I just couldnt live without them

After riding on the AA circuit for 6 years I was just ready for something different, something more fun. That's when I really turned to the miniatures. Coming up on my 3rd year with my miniatures, I've never been more happy

 

[bevann]

Definitely born with it Among my first words was "Horsey" and I was very spoiled as a child since my parents tried for 8 years to conceive me. My father grew up on a farm with his father using mules for his sawmill. We lived in town since my mother wanted no parts of a farm having grown up on one.I got my first pony Beauty, a black&white grade tobiano when I was 3. We kept her in a stable behind the garage and she was cart trained.My dad had the Amish build a cart with auto tires and she was driven all over town.We even drove her down to the middle of town to the blacksmith shop.We used the cart to collect newspapers to sell to a dental suppy company on my street.This was in the late 1940's and early 1950's before recycling was the thing to do. I think I was born with farm genes. In 1949 my dad bought the farm where I now live.We lived in town due to mom.I moved out here in 1966 and it is still my favorite place on earth to be surrounded by my horses and dogs. (I used to sit in class in junior high and dream about living on a farm and raising horses and dogs.

 

[Alex]

I was not born into it. I guess Im different.

I have only been involved with horses for 2 years. It all started with an ag. field trip, when I saw minis. Had to have one.

I joined 4-H , joined local clubs,

and Ive been addicted to minis ever since.

The rest of my family are city slickers, and thought horses stunk...

 

[Echo Acres]

Interesting as my Mother and I were just discussing this very thing last weekend. I had to have been born with it as my family are NOT horse people and do not understand at all. They tried everything they could to squash it, then when I was 10 they caved (I'm the youngest of 6) and I started riding lessons at the college and when I was 13 I earned half the money for my first horse (Dad matched me) and paid the other half.

Horses are my life. My husband gets mad at me because I insist on feeding my horses before I eat and that means most nights I am not at the dinner table. He accuses me of putting the horses ahead of the family and that simply isn't true. Its just a matter of timing and the way it works out with our schedules.

I wish I had a less expensive addiction, but thats not in the cards!!!

I totally understand! My husband was a city boy and I thought that he understood. It has always been an issue with us. He thinks I love them more than him. Well, it might just do us in. I of course don't, but if he makes me choose, I don't believe he really loves me and I will choose the horses. I too was born with it and have never been without. I really hope that in the near future I don't have to sell all of my horses because of this. I have gotten my mom back into it and it is great to be able to share it with her. They have now become an important part of my kids lives. I wish he could see that and support us.

 

[Leeana]

Well that is a interesting question and somewhat hard to answer question. Going back about three generations in my family is all horse owners. My father grew up in Kentucky and they had mules and horses his life growing up, as did his father and so on and on. When i was a kid i had all these little horse toys and "my pretty pony" and watched all the horse movies.

Then my mother and father moved to Ohio (from Kentucky) before i was born and he got back into the horses up here after a few years. Then i was born in 1988 and got my first pony named Miss Molly at 3 or 4 years old, i still have photos, i will have to scan those sometime of me in a pink dress and red rain boots being led around on miss molly. Then i outgrew her and i believe someone local bought her, *i* was then horseless until i was about 14 years old. Dad throughout that time had horses but i was to cought up in boys back in those days lol. Dad still had throughbreds, drafts, Tennessee Walkers (his faverite) and a variety of other gaited breeds, i rode them a little bit but i guess i never really ever got into it enough to keep my interest. Then when i was 14 i got my first mini, Coco (who now lives with my good friend Linda Lgahr for the time being) and i went into the minis really with little horse knowledge at all. All i knew was what my father told me, which was how they did things "down in the hills" back in "his days" lol. The first two years were a real learning experience

.

Funny thing, back when i was a kid, about 6 or 7 years old, i acually think was when i took an interet into the minis / shetlands. My dad was going through our local newpaper and read an add for ponies for sale. We called and drove over and the man took us out to his huge pasture full of foals and mares. I remember i wore flip flops throuh about a foot of mud that day lol. That farm we visited was the Taylor Pony Farm "Michigan Ponies", i never linked everything together until about two years ago lol.

I plan to be with the minis and ponies for a long long long time