A Chain of Miracles

Here is a 3-way happy ending that I hope will warm your heart

If this is the first thing you’re reading, it might help to know that this is a serial set of stories in FIFO order. If you’re interested, you can start at the beginning of the main quest post list and work forward. Or not.

It’s taken me a long time to write the next piece of the story. I kept putting it off and putting if off. Then the other day I realized why I was dragging my feet: This would be my final goodbye. Makes my heart hurt a little but it is what it is.

The last part of the story had me telling Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society that I would like to surrender my three horses to them as I would be leaving the state soon. I got a lovely though noncommittal response from them, promising to see if they could find foster placement as well as people who would be interested in entering their annual Training Challenge with the two mares.

I may have told you this already, but I fret about my animals. Besides the worry of watching them age and wondering if I’m taking care of them the best, I worry about whether or not I’m being the best steward possible. It shouldn’t surprise you, then, to know that I fretted. Would the rescue be able to place all three horses? What if one or two got placed, what should I do about the third (I assumed that would be Glory, being old and unrideable)? If they did get placed, would it be in a good environment? Though I knew about and respected the rescue, I didn’t know anything about the people who worked with them.

Over the next month or so, Bluebonnet found a foster for Glory (hooray!) and two trainers who would work with Patty and Annie to ride in the Training Challenge. I got to meet two of the three, but I didn’t get to connect with Annie’s trainer (and, of course, she was the one I was most concerned about as she had had very little training and no saddle on her back). They left me at the end of June. It was a wrench to see them go, but I got updates about Glory and Patty that set my mind to rest.

This was the first miracle—that the rescue could place all three. The managing director actually sent me a note calling it exactly that and saying how pleased she was that they were able to help me.

I’m skipping ahead on the timeline here (it’s my story, so I can do that if I want to) to keep you from waiting for the outcome.

In the last week of September came more miracles. I connected with all three people who had taken on my horses. The trainers with the mares had Facebook pages that let them promote each horse for adoption at the challenge. Seeing the two girls in their new lives made me all misty.

And the third? I got word from the fosterer that Glory had been adopted!!!! A woman who owns a local restaurant called The Palomino has adopted him to be the restaurant’s mascot. This means he will go there with her from time to time and hang out in a corral by the front door, to get pets and treats from restaurant patrons. I was over the moon! I can’t think of a better place for a veteran ranch horse to end up in his old age!

I finally realized that if I didn’t fly back to Texas for the Training Challenge, I would regret it to the end of my days. It was my chance to see Patty and Annie compete, and to say one last goodbye, and I took it.

Rather than give you words, I give you pictures. Here are Patty and Bella in the Under 12 In Hand Division. Patty was renamed Kimana, which is Shoshone for “butterfly,” hence those awesome wings on her rump. No surprise that they won Best Costume!

Isn’t she a beautiful big girl? I loved seeing her perform in such a beautiful costume.

And here is my baby Annie, renamed Glinda, and her professional trainer Cara doing their “Wicked” routine for the Professional Division. She came to me at 1.5 years old and is now 11. Until July, she had had minimal training and never a saddle on her back.

Unless you have an equestrian’s eye, you may miss some of the more subtle accomplishments as they perform all the required moves, but even so I’m sure you will be gobsmacked at her performance after just three months with Cara! Tears were streaming down my face as I recorded this.

And Cara and Annie/Glinda won both the Professional Division and the overall Challenge prizes!!!! My baby girl got the best start I could have ever asked for, and I will be forever grateful.

And the miracles weren’t over yet. Both Patty and Annie got adopted at the Challenge, with the absolute PERFECT people for each one!

Annie now has the best partner for a beautiful and exciting life—a woman who is very plugged into all the best things in the horse world and who I’m sure will take my girl on great adventures. Patty was adopted along with a big, charming gelding named Gaston (she’s boy crazy, so this was perfect) by a wonderful couple who plan to ride around their 15 acres in Central Texas.

It was a happy ending all around after a chain of miracles, and I went home happy and content. If you had asked me three months earlier what my ideal solution would be for my three, I would have described pretty much how things turned out. No, I’ll take that back. Things turned out better than I could ever have imagined!!!