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| Avalon (Dalia at the time), before I brought her home - winter fuzz and all! |
I spent months scouring craigslist ads looking for the right horse; wondering if I should even get a new horse. I found a green Arabian gelding, but he was older than I thought. I visited a (gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous) quarter horse filly, but she was too well bred for me. Everything about her screamed that she needed to compete and I don't even ride western. By April, I began to think I might not find the horse I needed.
Only a week or so later, I came back into contact with an old friend who told me she had a arabian/warmblood mix for sale. The timing was coincidental. I had to check it out. Enter Avalon (then Dalia), a three year old filly. I knew both of her parents when I worked at Galloping Hills back in 2013. Sometimes I can see bits of their conformation or personality in her. I actually met young Dalia when she was only a few months old. At the time I had no idea that we would come back into each other's lives like this.
When I tried the other horses it was awkward.Partially because it's hard to try out an unbroken or extremely green horse. If you can't ride them, you have to find other ways to judge their level of willingness. Another reason is that I wasn't familiar with most of the owners, so they didn't know I use natural horsemanship methods. Avalon's owner has known me for some time. The first thing she did was let us both loose in a round pen. We clicked. Avalon didn't have any experience with Parelli or natural horsemanship which resulted in some miscommunication. Despite that, I had more fun with her than I'd had since Gamby died. I knew instinctively that she was the horse I was looking for.
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