~OUR STORY~
I think every boy or girl that dreams of owning their own horse should be given or barrowed their first horse. That was the case with my sister and me. We were thrilled with our old sorrel mare "Miracle". Her pictures and story can be found on our "Old Pals" page. Several years after we no longer had Miracle, we moved from outside Nashville Tennessee to Springfield Missouri. With 116 acres to manage, my sister and I really need some horses. :~} My sister and I had a definite love for colorful horses. We purchased Saphire and Stardust. Saphire was a sorrel tobiano paint gelding, Stardust an Appaloosa. We rode that many years bareback and became quite experienced. Through this we acquired a partiality to Black And White Paint Horses! And in summer 2006; God made our dream come true.
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December 2005 we found our sorrel and white fillie’s sire's website. We found a nice black and white stud colt for sale at a reasonable price out of her sire. We were all quite sick with the flu. So, by the time we got around to calling on him, he had been bought over the phone just minutes before our call...
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In spring of 2006, we drove 5 hours one way to our choice of stallion with both our mares and their foals. We decided it was way too hard on them, risky, and we missed 5 weeks of our foals life and training, not to mention the cost! So, the search for OUR stallion was on again. We looked through literally hundreds of online horse ads-we are VERY picky-we didn’t stop until we found HIM. HE was the ONE. Black and white, solid black head, liquid brown eyes, super pedigree, a son of Shots Flying Spark-and the price was right, wait, no, he's right here in Springfield! This can't be. We were so excited, this was it! When in front of us on the computer screen the !SOLD! sign suddenly pops up. No way! We e-mailed the seller right away and asked if Lucky was still available-just in case. No Lucky had just been sold for sure. But she did have one last black and white mare she absolutely loved, but had to sell. She had to sell all of her horses in a hurry due to family circumstances. I mean this lady LOVED these horses like her own babies and took EXCELLENT care of them. I wasn't that interested in getting a mare yet, but she sounded nice, and I'd need something nice to breed OUR stallion to eventually. We went out and visited Wammy, who was 9 1/2 months along by Lucky. We walked in the barn and on our left was HIM. Take your breath away, skip a heart beat all in one, he was gorgeous, extremely well-manner and broke and he was so shiny he looked wet. We were so upset he wasn't to be ours. We told his owners Judy and Geri if anything fell through with his sale, we'd take him. Next, we met Wammy and her 2005 baby Sparkley. They were great. Wammy's pedigree was superb, her babies full of potential. She was a sweet, big, built mare. And due in foal by Lucky soon. Sparkley was a loudly colored black and white, homozygous, filly that had recently been bit by a recluse spider and therefore was in a bad humor over it. Wammy was never raced or broke due to a barbed-wire accident as a two year old. At age 8 Judy bought her and her legs were still un-healed. Judy took wonderful care of Wammy and soon her leg was healed and she was healthy. Although her gait remains slightly off due to healing tight, she has recently been broke to ride at age 13 and is a very smooth, nice ride. Yep, later that week we decided we couldn’t loose Wammy too, not after losing Lucky. And there was always her foal. We were setting high-hopes for a black and white colt like Lucky. He was already named Desperado and we'd keep him a stud colt. His song was "Desperado" By Black. Judy also had been trying to produce another Lucky for the past five breeding years, but had only got fillies! Meanwhile, in our daily lives, God was changing us in many ways, directing us in what things it was time to let go or no longer do. By obeying God he just heaped blessing after blessing upon us through each thing. We continued to visit Wammy every 10-14 days through the rest of her pregnancy. We wanted her to know us, Judy to know who her favorite mare was going to and for us to learn from Judy. Judy had worked on the Race tracks in the past and full of knowledge. We told Judy to call us the minute that baby hit the ground, even if it was 2am. We kept the phone by our bed. On June 20th 2006 at 12am, Wammy gave birth to a big black and white colt, with brown eyes. Judy called us at 2am [LOL] and told us we'd got our colt. We continued to visit Wammy and Desperado, all the while Judy trying to convince us we should get Sparkley, too. I wasn't sure I could handle another horse. Sparkley also needed an attitude adjustment-could I handle her? Judy finally broke down and said either Wammy or Sparkley would be sick when the other one left. She practically gave me Sparkley just to make sure she got a good home AND stayed with Wammy. I am now so extremely glad we said we'd take her. Even with her giving her to us for so little, I still wanted to base my decision on properly caring for another horse.
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We continued our search for OUR stallion. We were afraid we'd never find HIM, after missing the colt in December, then Lucky-who we thought we'd never get over. We looked at every online horse classified website everyday, after looking through over 1,000 APHA studs for sale we narrowed it down to a couple decent looking guys. All the while bouncing them off our ever-helpful and knowledgeable friend Rachel. She new pedigrees better than us. We then took a serious look at a 12 year old black and white stallion in Tennessee. Rachel gave us the go ahead, err, um, actually she said “Go For It!” The first time she met him she said “Ya, I’m glad you got him”. We called and asked many more questions about him, they e-mailed us many photos and video clips of him being ridden. They also informed us another lady wanted him. We over-nighted a deposit, we weren’t losing this stallion. The lady that also wanted him had a horse have an allergic reaction to a vaccine and lose his sight. Meanwhile we completed acquiring Rap. He was completely broke and had been finished in pleasure training and had sired over 50 babies. None of them sorrels, obviously homozygous for the black. He had brown eyes; though not a solid black head, he had nice color. He sounded like a gentleman and an easy stallion to handle. Just what we needed for our first stallion. We love the TB lines, but a QH pleasure bred stallion was probably a good idea. The man who has owned Rap since he was a yearling had spent $18,000 training him. He ran rental horse stables all his life, but was now in his 80's and his heart was failing him. Some friends of his, get this, Jerry and Judy were the ones who actually sold him to us. How much more perfect can God be. Geri and Judy sold us Wammy and Sparkley and Jerry and Judy sold us Rap. It was so meant to be. Rap was bit rough as he'd been out to pasture the last two seasons. He was thin and looked like a horse that hadn't 'filled out' yet. But with some TLC and feed he put on some weight and with riding some muscle and he's an absolutely gorgeous, well-mannered stallion. Abby and I go to love on him or brush him and we just say how we can't believe this big, handsome, guy is really ours. We are ever so blessed to have all of these beautiful black and white paint horses. Thank You Geri and Judy for all your help and allowing us to own your babies, thank you Farley Guy for OUR stallion Rap, and Jerry and Judy for selling him to us. And thank you Rachel for all your 'horse' help. And thank you GOD.
