First Post!

Well, this is my first blog post! Yay! I guess I should tell you a little about myself to start out with.

My horse, Black Sun (Sunny), is a nine year old Standardbred. He was rescued in March of 2008 after having been starved all winter (that particular winter was especially frigid - even for Wisconsin). He was a one on the body condition scale, and we really didn't know if he would live. He did not trust anyone. He was apparently "broke" to ride - literally. When I first saw a picture of him I only saw three haybales covered with snow... then I realized that the middle "hay bale" was his back end. He was terribly thin. He had a look in his eyes that almost broke my heart. (It reminds me of the part of that Demi Lovato song: "I don't want to be afraid, I want to wake up feeling beautiful today, and know that I'm ok...")

He was rescued by a humane officer of Racine County. Our hooftrimmer sent us a message asking us to please let the humane officer know if there was anyone who could foster them. My mom and I went out to see Sunny, and his companion, Terra (we named them later on - they did not have names. Apparently whoever had left them to starve never named them...). We brought them apples, which we set on the ground for them. They didn't know what an apple was. They would not eat their feed unless we were outside their pen. His winter coat was matted and falling out in clumps. We turned to the humane officer and told them we would adopt them. We've never looked back since.

We just recently graduated our Level 1+. I am so, so proud of Sunny. He has learned to trust again, and he is a super horse. Literally. He is becoming exuberant, and his Liberty is phenomenal. When I see his movements, I see a natural dressage "tendency." After our foundation is in place, we may pursue that - naturally. Sunny owns the timeline; we are having so much fun together every day.

We are both living our dream... thanks to Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship