Something New

This was about a month ago. The pretty black Percheron mare's name is Queen. Shes only 4 years old. I've been working with her for about a year, and this photo is of her very first "official" carriage job. It was a wedding in the country. She did fabulous despite the high winds and flapping table cloths everywhere. ( common horse eaters, just ask any horse) Queenie as we affectionately call her did above and beyond what was expected and never gave a second look to anything.

I was lucky enough to acquire Queen by pure luck. You see a friend of mine who I met online and fellow horse lover Barbara called me asking me if I would be interested in a draft mare that someone she knew was selling. She went on to plead to me that this horse needed a "break" and had, had, a hard life already. Her matching teammate was kept by the original owner and has since died from neglect this summer. Queen as Barbara described to me was tied to a tree for months via a short section of log chain to her halter. She said the mare had circled the tree so many times that she had dug a trench as deep as Barbara's knee is off the ground. Now she is short, but that would still have to be close to 16 inches!

I was compelled to go and see the mare ( with trailer in tow) and she came here to our farm as our newest edition. We really had no idea what for sure she was going to be like, and it was apparent early on that she did not like men at all. While I could walk right up to her, when hubby tried she was extremely leery. She was like this for a couple of months and only recently has completely warmed up to Ron. She actually comes to him now for pets.

The really cool thing about this story is that even with having had the misfortune of having an abusive owner, she has turned out to be quite the driving horse. She calm, sensible, and has a great work ethic. She is responsive and a delight in harness. Its almost as if she's saying "thank you!" and... "I want to stay here if you don't mind". We don't, and in fact feel quite lucky to have her. As it stands I owe Barbara a big one!