What made you interested in your current horse that led you to buying them in the first place?

I never horse-shopped.  I wasn't in the market.  I was in the most fucked-up place in my life.

Duke, the 17.3 Selle Francais who took me to the 3' division, had died.  Archie had meandered into my life and I knew I wanted him, but I certainly wasn't in the place to buy a horse.  I was in college, working part-time (for the first time ever! I'd worked full-time since I graduated high school.), I'd just dumped my psychopath fiancé and agreed to keep the apartment that we had, which I couldn't afford.  I'd put the ownership idea on hold because I was sure that it wasn't going to happen, that someone else was going to snatch up Archie.

I'm 99% sure that this is the first photo of Archie and me, yanked off fb.  I was telling my brother of my plans to buy him, thus the defensive posture.  December, 2005.

I don't remember a lot from that time.  Intentionally.

I remet my now-husband and things in my life started looking up.  Better job, a tiny bit more comfortable financially, and someone sensible to help keep me in line.

On April 25th, 2006, a woman making a left-hand turn out of a Zaxby's cut me off and totaled my car.

I borrowed my aunt's first car, a 1986 Toyota Corolla hatchback, for eighteen months until I could afford something better.  And I used the money from the insurance company to put a down on Archie.  My BM agreed to let me make monthly payments and work off most of his board.  There would have been no way otherwise that I could have had him.  I still thank her about once a year.


So it was never that I wanted a horse.  I could have held off for a few more years and kept taking lessons and maybe even half-leased something.  But it was Archie.  It was that first step in trot, when we naturally synched up and I knew, absolutely knew, that he was it.  I'd ridden hundreds of horses, several that were far better movers, and tons that knew so much more and were a hundred percent more agreeable.  But it was him.  It was like some part of him finally answered a call I didn't know I made, a longing I didn't know I had.  A void.

Certainly didn't hurt that he was a tall, dreamy bay gelding, athletic and challenging.