I think that nearly every child goes through a stage of wanting a pony; some never grow out of it. I was one of those who never outgrew it. Since I was little, I loved horses and wanted one of my own. My best friend who rode encouraged that love. At last, at age 9, my parents let me take riding lessons. I was immediately hooked. Around Christmas 1998, my parents were debating over buying me an adorable little Paint pony named Bert. I, of course, was all for it, praying night and day for him. At last, on December 29, 1998, we bought him. Bert was any horse-crazy girl’s dream. He was small, about 13 hands, and had a sorrel coat with white patches on his neck and belly. A white blaze ran down the center of his face and his mane, tail, and forelock were tan. He had the cutest brown eyes I had ever seen. I was crazy about him.

[private]That fall I started fifth grade. I wasn’t really a troublemaker, but my new teacher and I clashed on the first day. Even then I could tell that it was going to be a rough year. My teacher and I continued to have occasional problems. Thank God I had Bert during all of this. He was the one thing that I could count on. Bert’s warm furry neck was often used to catch my tears as I would bury my face in his coat and let the tears of frustration loose.

He was my refuge from my troubles. At the end of fifth grade, things had improved at school and I credit this to Bert. In June, my grandfather and cousin died and again, Bert’s neck caught my tears. By the time sixth grade started, my riding, thanks to Bert’s patience and occasional tricks, had improved. Sixth grade was much easier for me, thanks to my “learning experiences” the previous year.

I had outgrown the nearly 25-year-old Bert, so he was put up for sale. Even though I knew it was for the best, I was fervently hoping that Bert wouldn’t be sold for a while longer. The day came sooner than I wanted.

On April 21,2001, my barn was having a tack swap. We had put Bert in a stall so that potential buyers could see him, and sure enough, in the space of a few hours, Bert was no longer mine. I, of course, was heartbroken, even though it was for the best. Gone were my days with Bert.

When I look back, I realize how truly lucky I was to have him. He had a great personality. The mixture of cute, sweet, a bit of silliness, patience, and a dash of mischief made Bert special. He had his occasional bad days, of course, but he was never mean. Bert transformed me from an irresponsible, awkward, immature, naïve child to a confident, open-minded, more mature, and more responsible pre-teen. He taught me so much about life. Bert was one of my best friends. He never said, “I told you so”, never yelled at me, and didn’t care what I looked like. Bert and I loved each other and were a good match.

I believe that Bert helped me discover who I am, and once I was back on my feet, he left, having accomplished making me, me. On December 29, 1998, he ambled into my life, heart, and soul, and on April 21, 2001, he ambled out of my life but not out of my heart or soul. There he’ll remain, reminding me of all he taught me, reminding me of the time in which he was my beacon in darkness, reminding me of my best friend. We all have horses that change our life, work miracles for us, and Bert was my miracle.[/private]

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My name is Ashley and I’m fifteen. When I was six, I suffered a near drowning. One afternoon, I was brought along with my neighbors to go fishing after my mom’s friend had died. While my neighbors were putting a worm on my hook, I had seizure and slipped into the water. When they found me I was unconscious.

At the hospital my parents were told that I most likely wasn’t going to survive. I was in a coma and the doctors were unsure about massive brain damage. My parents were told to prepare funeral arrangements and before they left, my dad bent down and whispered something in my ear. The next morning I had awakened from my coma after a week and was asking a question over and over again. “Am I really going to get a pony”? As it turns out, my dad had said the day before “If you wake up I’ll buy you your pony”.

Miraculously that morning the x-rays showed that I no longer had pneumonia and showed no signs of brain damage. I was having problems with my mobility, but was able to walk within days. I now have an American Saddlebred gelding called The Magic Cookie, his barn name is Monty. I show him in equitation and I believe that without horses, I wouldn’t be alive today. Monty’s favorite treat is drinking cherry coke out of a can. He is my miracle horse; he helped me survive and gave me something to believe in.

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All too vivid are the memories of that March morning when I received a phone call that Roy was injured and I’d better get there fast. The accident must have happened during the night, because by morning Roy was weak from loss of blood. His hind leg was severed below the hock and blood was pouring down his leg. His head was hanging low and he looked like life was draining slowly from his body. Looking up I saw a big hole in the side of the steel building with jagged steel pieces protruding as though a small bomb burst through the building.

Imperial Roy is a 3-1/2 year old Quarter Horse, beautiful, sleek, smart, spirited, and could run like the wind. He was a present from my husband and me to John, our eight-year-old grandson. The special bond they shared gave me the reason to fight for Roy’s life.

It was horrible getting Roy into the trailer to take him to the hospital. While struggling to get him into the trailer, he fell to the ground in front of the trailer doors. Watching him try to get his body back up was a pitiful sight. Upon arrival at the clinic, examination provided a morbid diagnosis: completely severed suspensory ligament, severed deep flexor tendon, severed superficial flexor tendon, and severed artery. The leg just dangled; there was nothing holding his bones and muscles together. His ligament and tendons were cut through. The doctor recommended putting him down. I couldn’t do it. Roy’s eyes seemed to tell me something:

I want to live. I’ll fight to live. Pain—yes, I’ll take it. I’m young. Just give me a chance. Please, just give me a chance. I’m not in control. I depend on you. I depend on you to know me. I’m a fighter. My natural instincts are to survive. I shall be tested against pain, against all odds, to not give up. Know that I want to fight even if I lose. I’m not strong now, neither physically nor emotionally, but if you give me a chance, it will be worth it all—for me, for you. If we both lose, we tried our very best.
Successful surgery was not guaranteed. Too many things could go wrong. Infection was a great possibility. Biting off his cast was a probability. Cast sores could occur and ulcers or colic could develop from long use of antibiotics and other medications. The prognosis was not good. The expense was tremendous. Roy would have to be stabled at the clinic for at least three months. That alone seemed an impossible task for a horse as spirited as Roy.

I was haunted with my decision to put him through this surgical ordeal. Everytime I saw him I questioned if I did the right thing. It was so pitiful to see how he would swing his leg back and forth, day after day, limping around his 10’ x 10” stall. To give himself relief, he would press his body against the stall wall, slide down, then drop down to the floor in order to relieve his pain. Watching him fight to get back up was even worse.

In the evening as I knelt next to him, with his head in my lap, his eyes painfully looking up at me, I would vow to have him put out of his misery in the morning. The next day would come and I couldn’t do it. I prayed to God that he give Roy the strength to keep fighting.

Five weeks passed and he appeared to limp worse. The decision was made to take Roy back into surgery and see what was going on underneath the cast. I asked to be allowed into the surgery room and view his leg after the cast was removed. What a sight it is to see a 1000 lb animal lying on a table hooked up to intravenous with an oxygen mask over his face. Upon removal of the cast we saw pressure sores on his fetlock, but the sewn ligament and tendons seemed to be intact, so he was recast for another four weeks.

I visited him every morning before work and every evening after work in order that he would not fall into a depression. I’d stop at the roadside and bring him grass. He’d hear my footsteps and recognize my walk down the aisle to his stall. He’d neigh when he saw me, and it was as though he waited for that moment when I’d appear.

The big day came to bring him home. I was concerned that the other horses would reject him, and perhaps harm him because he was no longer the “king pin.” He was the injured, the weak, and the most vulnerable. He’d be at the bottom of the pecking order. I watched how each of the 3 horses came up to him and put their nostrils against his. They snorted and sniffed him as if to make sure it was really him. He stood perfectly still and let them welcome him back into the herd. While I watched that scene of horse behavior, I was comforted knowing that Roy’s mother remembered her son.

Almost a year has gone by. Roy is a veterinarian’s miracle. He showed me courage, and he taught me that life is a gift from God worth fighting for.
Beautiful horse, you inspired me when you were healthy and vibrant; you inspire me now as you fight to survive. Everytime I look at you, you give me strength. You fulfill my soul and my need for freedom. I thank God I kept you. Selfish, yes, but I need you. I wish I could have taken some of that pain. I knew you wanted to live. I heard you. Your survival gives me strength more than you’ll ever know. Roll around in the sand again; kick up your heels; I’d love to see you run like the wind again someday. For now, I’ll take a day at a time, thanking God each time I lay my eyes on your beautiful body and look into your beautiful eyes that I didn’t put you down.

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Mother and I looked at each other our jaws dropped open. Mother looked back at the doctor, “It’s Summer time and she is an active nine year old. Could we first try keeping her on crutches?” she requested. They looked at me. I quickly told them I’d do anything to stay out of casts. To our relief, the Doctor agreed.

I was devastated, life as I knew it had evaporated. I moped about like a zombie as miserable days passed. Our house sat on the bluff above a wide beach. I sat on the verandah and watched my friends surf and play on the warm sand without me.

One mid-summer morning Mother’s friend called suggesting that I try riding one of their horses. They owned three trail horses and they weren’t riding one of them. She thought that one in particular would be suitable for me.
What! They have horses?! How had that information escaped this horse crazy kid? A kid that was pried off her Wonder Horse to eat. A kid that ran outside every evening before bed to wish on a star for a horse.

That next week would change my life forever. Five miles down the ocean bluff from our house was an old rough wooden boarding stable with 45 glorious horses. Corrugated metal roofing ran down the center of the rows of large stalls. It showed the wear of ocean storms and wood chewing horses. To me it looked like a glowing castle. Mother and I parked along the salty white fence of the sandy riding arena. The motley group of  kids riding inside the arena curiously watched me hobble along on my crutches toward stall number 29.  Inside stood a dusty rusted metal tack shed, but to me it looked like a treasure chest. The large shed contained only four things: grooming tools, a bareback pad, hackamore bridle and a big sack of alfalfa molasses sweet feed. Then, emerging from the shadowed shelter in the back of the stall appeared ‘Dundee’; a friendly freckle faced camel brown dun mare. She was tall, bony and unkempt; the most beautiful horse I had ever seen.

For the next three years, I appeared almost daily at the stable to swap my two weak legs for Dundee’s four strong ones. Never mentioning to my Mother all the falls I took, I learned to ride. Mounted bareback, Dundee and I moved as one. I spent my days cruising miles of grass pastures in the sea breeze. Meandering down the steep hills to the beach, we galloped on golden sand and swam in the blue Pacific.

I taught Dundee how to catch a wave and bodysurf to shore, just as my Father had taught me. We would stand in the ocean, watching outside for the best wave of the set, the one of the right height and shape. As the wave approached, we would move out toward it, pushing through the closer ones. A moment before the chosen wave reached us we would turn to face the beach. As the wave rose behind her I clung to her slippery wet neck, my fingers laced tight in the mane and we would start to canter in. At just the right moment, I would cue her to jump. At that moment the wave lifted her large body and carried it toward the shore. We loved that feeling of being weightless, as if no longer connected to our bodies.

As the wave washed over us I was lifted above her back, my legs pulled up to a jumping position. As the wave set us back down I regained my balance on her back and we cantered ashore. We rested for a moment on the sand, but she was eager to turn back into the water and wait for the next wave to ride. That was a perfect ride. When I first started, the surf knocked me off many times. I would float next to her, my fingers entwined in her mane, my legs streaming out behind as Dundee galloped forward dragging me through the water. If I lost hold, I had to struggle though the water to catch Dundee without tangling in her legs. If I missed getting a hold of her it was a good walk back to the stable. Of course, I didn’t tell Mother about that part either.

Together we had become healthy and in love with life. Dundee taught me the language of horses. A subtle non verbal, language of the body. Passing her keen gifts of being able to read every motion I made, of listening to my breath, of knowing my mood and reflecting it back to me. She knew me better than I knew my young self. Dundee made a Horse-woman out of a child.

That third year my legs were healed and incredibly strong, and my heart knew it could never again be whole without the love of a horse.  Others asked me to train their horses to swim like Dundee. While my peers made money from childcare, I provided horse-care, with swimming lessons.

One day, while I was exercising a horse on the beach I came upon a frustrated man trying to get a horse into the ocean. I offered help and was hired on the spot by the new fancy stable that rehabilitated racehorses. Now it was my turn to help horses fully recover the use of their legs.

Thirty-seven years later I still rehabilitate horses, using the gifts that Dundee gave to me. Now, when something in life is knocking me back, I will trade my two legs for a horse’s four and with them under me, gain the strength to go forward.

Post from: Horse Stories | Horse2Heart – Great Horse Stories

The Magic Cookie | Miraculous Horse Stories

By: Ashley Bleas

My name is Ashley and I’m fifteen. When I was six, I suffered a near drowning. One afternoon, I was brought along with my neighbors to go fishing after my mom’s friend had died. While my neighbors were putting a worm on my hook, I had seizure and slipped into the water. When they found me I was unconscious. At the hospital my parents were told that I most likely wasn’t going to survive. I was in a coma and the doctors were unsure about massive brain damage.

My parents were told to prepare funeral arrangements and before they left, my dad bent down and whispered something in my ear. The next morning I had awakened from my coma after a week and was asking a question over and over again. “Am I really going to get a pony”? As it turns out, my dad had said the day before “If you wake up I’ll buy you your pony”. Miraculously that morning the x-rays showed that I no longer had pneumonia and showed no signs of brain damage. I was having problems with my mobility, but was able to walk within days. I now have an American Saddlebred gelding called The Magic Cookie, his barn name is Monty. I show him in equitation and I believe that without horses, I wouldn’t be alive today. Monty’s favorite treat is drinking cherry coke out of a can. He is my miracle horse; he helped me survive and gave me something to believe in.

Ashley Bleas

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