My First Post - Finding Chance

After reading my friends blogs I have decided I might like to try this. I'm not sure if I'm disciplined enough to keep up with it or continue but I think it might be fun. And helpful
with my horses.

I have named this "My Journey with Chance" because thats what I have decided I am on...

a journey with my new horse.

I have a lot of catching up to do with my blogging because I am going to start at the beginning with Chance. When I go back and read this it will just make more sense to me this way.

I started looking for a horse early last summer with no luck. I'm not sure how many horses I
went to see, e-mailed and called about. There are hundreds out there for sale, but for one reason or another none of those horses worked out. Then I decided I was going to take a
ride to Hemphill's and look. I have no idea why I thought looking for a horse at a horse dealer and knowing nothing about him was going to be better than buying one from an actual person.

It was a scary thought but the option to lease for a few months before writing the check made the idea sound pretty good.

So off we went, myself and a my good friend A. Hemphill's is a little overwhelming to say the least. So many horses, where to start? We made a list, gelding, approx 15h, back from summer camp and the camp had to want the horse back, and he had to be visibly healthy. I'm not sure how many horses I looked at but the only one that had everything on my list was #131, the sorrel QH. He happened to be the 1st horse I looked at. The deciding factor was when my daughter rode him. She is a teenager but hasn't ridden for a few years and I was a little nervous about letting her ride a complete unknown. When she got on his back, he dropped his head and looked me straight in the eye, it was as if he was telling me, "Don't worry, I will take care of her." My friend told me he had the same look when I rode him. The other part to this is when I watched somebody else ride him. He had a completely different look in his eyes, he did not want this person on his back. He did all that was asked of him, but seemed relieved when the man got off.

Well, that was it. I signed the lease and #131 the sorrell QH would be delivered to me within 2 weeks. They gave me a copy of his negative coggins, told me he had a rabies shot and they thought he might be around 6 years old. He was delivered to them in June from a place in Minnesota. They sent him to a summer camp for 2 months and now he was back. That was all the information they had on him.

It's funny, I thought when I found "my horse" I might fall instantly in love, see fireworks or have butterflies. I don't know why I thought that, but I did. But no, there where no fireworks, no butterflies, just a nice quiet calmness. It was strange bringing a horse home that I had only spent about 30 minutes with, I would have until Dec. 1st to decide if I wanted to buy him.