We, well mostly my husband spends hours deciding which mare to match to which stud and then we spend a full year dreaming of what that match will produce and then when the foal comes we study how they zoom around the pasture and play with the others foals thinking about what they will be like when its time to buck them.
While we have huge dreams for all of them, like the yellow chutes in Vegas, sometimes the horses don’t have the same idea…
Meet Easy A, or Alice for short. Her momma was and still is a pretty salty bucking horse and she has some very successful siblings, but she had other plans. I will never forget the day we dummy bucked her for the first time, she never hit a lick! She just shot out of the chute like a cannon ball and never bucked. To say that we were disappointed would be an understatement. We had waited years for this day and while we didn’t expect her first out to outstanding (granted we always have hope and sometimes they are just that good from the beginning) we had expected her do something!
After picking up my sucker I had thrown in the dirt, we decided to keep her up and come up with a plan B for Alice. I took some video of her and sent it to my friend growing up that I use to jump with. Annie saw the video and decided to take a chance on Alice! Now, getting her from Oklahoma to California would be our next obstacle. They found a hauler for her and I was tasked with getting her halter broke before they arrived in a few weeks.
While halter breaking Alice I immediately fell in love with her. I could yell her name at the gate of a 35 acre trap, when it was time for her lesson and she would come trotting ready to get to work. She loved the attention and it was clear to see that she didn’t have the personality to be a bronc but instead a riding horse.
Well, she made it California and Annie and her barn fell in love with Alice just like I did. Annie got her riding around in no time and now Alice is living her best life soaking up the beautiful weather in California with lots of green grass and attention. While I have never seen Alice buck and Annie said she never bucked when she was starting her, she said she did catch her once bucking in the pasture while she was looking down from her window, so she does have in her just chooses not to.
While Alice never fulfilled our dreams of her going out of that yellow chute, it still makes our hearts happy that she has found a new job that she loves with people that love her. I don’t have kids but I’m sure it’s a little similar, you have big dreams for them before they even arrive but at the end of they day what really matters is that they end up doing the perfect job for them.
Corey, my husband is really cranking out some great broncs! But, every once in awhile an Alice comes along and we take great pride in finding what suits them best when we can.
Ranch Wife Ramblings 