destiny's story
- By Lori Hiner
Our Mountain Horses never cease to amaze me! I will explain why after giving you a brief history of how we came to own these wonderful horses. We have been involved with horses for the past 23 years and it wasn’t until 6 years ago we discovered the mountain horse breed purely by accident. We went to farm to look at an older racking horse for our daughter and while we were there, the farm owner showed us her newly acquired stock of weanling mountain horses. We went in the field to see them and they all came swarming around us, each wanting attention from us. In all our years dealing with horses, we have never experienced being around young horses that craved human contact as much as these weanlings. We visited a few more mountain horse breeder farms and experience the same sweet and loving disposition from these horses at each farm we visited. The icing on the cake for us was not only their smooth 4 beat gait but also their level-headness both under saddle and on the ground. At one of the farms we visited, I fell in love with a perlino yearling that stayed by my side nuzzling my ear the entire time we were out in the pasture surround by a herd of 30 mountain horses. I couldn’t get him out of my mind and when I found out he was named Destiny, I knew he was the horse for me.
Destiny was the first young horse I have ever owned and I began his ground work as soon as we got him home. I was amazed at how fast he caught on during all his lessons and how he retained what he learned if I wasn’t able to work with him on consistent basis. He was started under saddle at 2 years of age and was out on the trails after 2 weeks of under saddle training in an arena. I felt very safe with him on the trails as he was so level headed and willing to do whatever I asked him.
At age 3, I decided to enter him in a 4th of July parade as I had always wanted to ride a horse in a parade but never felt confident in any of our previous horses to be able to handle the crowds much less the fire truck and rescue squad sirens blaring away behind a horse (in our area, parades are all about fire trucks, rescue squads, and farming vehicles). Destiny did wonderful - the noises, the sirens, the crowds, the city sights, and the running children – never phases him and we ended up winning first place in best female rider and horse! I was so proud of him.
I have taken Destiny to therapeutic riding events that we volunteer at and he is a favorite among the participants as he is accepting of the wheelchairs and braces that some of the children use. The children just love him as he stands their patiently for all of their attention to be lavished on him.
Another example of his versatility happened last year when I decided to take him to a local horse show to have some fun showing – we normally just trail ride together. My husband’s 10 year old cousin showed up at the horse show with her riding shoes in hand. She lives out of state and was visiting her grandmother for the weekend when she heard about the horse show. She had just started taking riding lessons in her home town and was so excited to see a real horse show first hand. I asked her if she would like to ride Destiny outside the ring before I went in for our first class. She was so excited after riding him that I decided to check the class schedule to see if there might be some event she could take him in and learned there was a beginner’s class for juveniles coming up shortly. She had to use my tack, helmet, and had no fancy show clothes but we entered them anyway just to give her the experience. To make a long story short, she competed against 17 others, and she and Destiny won a ribbon. We were ecstatic and she has a memory of a life time and her passion for horses has been fueled to last forever.
As I am writing this, I am looking out the window at my daughter and her friend out riding in the pasture. My daughter’s friend, who has never been on a horse before and is a little nervous about riding, is on Destiny and having a glorious time. It amazes me that for a horse that is only 6 years old now, that he can go from backyard riding for beginners, to parades, to camping and trail riding, and to showing without missing a beat. We now own 5 of these wonderful mountain horses and they really are the most loving, all around breed we have ever known. They are truly amazing.
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