By: Jennifer Hall

It was a new beginning as I ran into the barn smiling. I was excited to meet the new horses that had just arrived late the night before. My husband, Pete and I operated a Standardbred racing stable and a new owner had filled our stalls. Times were tough and it was a struggle to make ends meet with the four horses we were training. I gazed at the ten new faces triumphantly. I wanted to introduce myself to each one of them. As I entered each stall I looked them over and decided who I would care for.

By: KARI DICKERSON

When i was 13 my 6 year old mare “annie” fell with me in a reining class. I fell to the ground with her on top of me. An older gentelmen came to the arena, along with other competitors, to see if i was ok. they had to approch annie and me quietly because they didn’t want her to get up. She laid their very still so that she wouldn’t hurt me. the man that came and got her said later on that he had to take my feet out of the stirrups and pull annie up. While he was trying to get her off me he said she would not stop nickering softley.
The gentelman took her back to the barn and the whole time annie would stop, and look back at me lying on the ground unconcious. the ambulance had to come get me, but it all turned out to be fine.

By: Lola Endres

My daughter, Lindsay, has been around horses since she was a week old. It was only natural,that when she turned nine, she would show in our county 4-H shows. Since our beloved pony,
Blaze, was nearing retirement, and our other two horses were semi-retired, we agreed to let Lindsay show a family horse in her first year of 4-H. Determined to be the best she could
be, Lindsay rode every day, and couldn’t wait until the first show.
One evening, while preparing to ride, the mare spooked, went over backwards, twisting Lindsay’s leg in the stirrup, breaking it in two different places. The mare was retired to become
a broodmare, and Lindsay’s confidence was shattered.

By: Mollie Zobel

My heart was pounding as sweat trickled into my eyes. I swept a gloved hand across my face to wipe it away. My breath seemed loud as I sucked in the cool April air. I looked at my watch, only a few minutes to go. I felt Flash move beneath me and I leaned down onto his golden neck reassuring him. “Only a few minutes left big man, hold on just a little longer, easy now, easy”, I murmured softly. His delicate ears flickered back and I felt his hooves paw the soft ground. I smiled as I looked around.

By: Donna Wells

Our 11 yr.old daughter, who is a novice rider, started riding lessons. Things were off to a great start. Mackenzie was walking and trotting and even backing the horse with no problem. The trainer then started switching her to other horses. These horses all just had a little quirk about them. They were not dangerous, but our daughter’s confidence level bit the dust. She was to the point of holding the horn, crying and walking in fear. At the end of every lesson I would tell her that she could quit and she always said NO I want to ride.

By: MONICA RIVERA

let me tell you about something that happened to me a couple of years back. I was probably about nine or ten years old. It was summer vacation, and I had decided to spend it with some relatives in a part of Mexico where everything is still done the old-fashioned way. I woke up early one morning to drive out to my uncles` pasture, to help milk the cows.

By: Mollie Zobel

I walk down the rows between the metal pens. The new spring grass crunches under my feet. My fingers trail along the metal railing, rust flaking off at my touch. Neighs of horses calling to one another ring in the air, the snort of a wary horse, the nicker of a mare calling to her foal, the piercing scream of a stallion. I make my way over to the trade booths, their signs proclaiming, “Wild Horse and Burro Adoption”, and pick up pamphlets on adopting mustangs. I know it’s for their own good. The herds have to be monitored so that they can exist and have enough grazing land. It’s not like they’re being killed! I walk back to the horses, the pamphlets stuffed into my back pockets.

By: Lisa Clement

For five years, the neighbor’s mare ‘Shawnee Dancer’ watched me at our adjoining fence. A proud Mustang of glowing white, she was the queen of the ragged group of five odd horses that lounged, swishing and stomping flies in the summer sun, and huddled together in winter storms. Dark buckskin marking covered the right half of her head and was the only color on her compact body. It looked as if mud had dried on her coat. The other side of her white head held a pale blue eye rimmed with a quarter inch of black, like eyeliner had been perfectly applied.

By: Chelsie Rigterink

“Guess what?” I exclaimed, jumping up from the computer with excitement. I had just found some of the best news imaginable while surfing the Internet. Not waiting for a reply, I shouted out the information that had caused my sudden burst of enthusiasm. “Cigar is at the Kentucky Horse Park!”

“Well that’s nice,” my mother replied sedately from her seat on the couch. She had barely looked up from the book she was reading. The rest of my family had little or no response. It wasn’t as if I expected them to leap up and turn cartwheels as a result of the statement, yet I found myself disgusted with how calm they remained. My family does not share my obsession with horses, so they could not have possibly understood why this was earth shattering news.

By: Regena Breeden

“What’s up?” I asked my father as we walked towards our garage, “ Why did you call me out here?” “Prepare yourself Joyce*, something awful has happened”…..

Well, wait a minute. Maybe I’m skipping ahead in my story. Let me start by saying that my name is Joyce Granger. I am in 8th grade at Holdenbrook Junior High School, in Holdenbrook, TN. I have ridden American Saddlebreds for a few years now, and it is something that I will always love. My story started a cool April morning. My trainer/instructor, his wife, my family and myself were all in the car headed to Lexington, KY, to look for a show horse for me. I was very excited, however very tired because we had gone to a show and hauled hay the night before.