How It All Started

There was never a horse I didn’t like.  Okay, there’s never been a horse I didn’t love. At the age of sixteen, after years of pleading and promising that I could support my own horse (of course, I had no idea what that actually meant), my Pop agreed to buy me one. He kept repeating, “It costs as much to own a good horse as a bad horse.” What was he talking about? I wasn’t choosey. They all looked great to me! But Pop would point out the one with the crooked leg, the one without a leg, the one with its eyes bulging out of its head like the whites of two hard-boiled eggs, the one whose ears were perpetually plastered on its poll and, of course, there were always the ones that just didn’t like me… even though I loved them. They would do their best to get me off: buck, shy, rear, fall down, go for the rub-you-off-the-fence trick etc. It took Pop and me two years to find the right horse. I was forever grateful. The year was 1961. Her name was Beach Plum.

As I grew older, had children, and now grandchildren, my preference as a horse owner changed from the edgy, high strung, delicate Thoroughbred type to a horse who could prove itself to be dependable, unflappable, sane, and kind.  It also had to be beautiful. I was no longer interested in jumping horses (at my age we don’t bounce like we used to!) From the very moment I set eyes on a star Friesian I was hooked. What an incredible presence, nobility, and grace!

In 2004 I decided I had to own a Friesian. Such was the passion, I ended up buying, not one, but two Friesian mares.  From then on, there were threats from the family that they were going to run an intervention on me, ”Mom just bought another Friesian…she is out of control…Mom just left for Holland. She is flying home with a star Friesian mare! ...Somebody stop her!”

Now, there are six mares on the farm ranging in age from three months to seven years.