Anyone else's horse have a surprising past?

So, I have an 11 year old lazy Thoroughbred gelding that raced a few times when he was younger, and won a few times then was converted to hunters. I thought.

I decided to peek at his tattoo today and look him up. Turns out, he's 14 years old, and won $85,000. Ohh my. Also, he has a terrible registered name of "Mymommadonetoldme"

Anyone else's horse have a surprising past?

Hmm,
I don't really know much about my horse other than what his previous owner told me and it seems to me that she was just more of a place for him to stay while she sold him for the owner before her who was also a freind or something. I have his registered name and papers. How would I look into his past??

Not sure about surprising as we knew about Zorro's past before buying....

Zorro was an ex -rodeo pick up horse, he was horrible for picking up broncs, but you could rope bucking bulls on him. My husband used him for roping bulls when he travelled with a stock contractor for the PBR.

Stilts was bred for a NRCHA futurity prospect. He was sent to a trainer that I worked for. I started him, we instantly "clicked" and I had to own him. And through kindness of the owner and my boss I was able to purchase him. He seems to enjoy outdoor cow work/ranch work rather than arena but he's happy chasing cattle either way. The previous owner actually found me through HF and gave me a little background on his parentage. Sounds like the dam and sire were as accident prone as Stilts is. LOL! The sire's showing and stud career was cut short by either a deliberate poisoning or allergic reaction, the autopsy was inconclusive . The dam's showing career was cut short due to a kick in the elbow by another horse at a show. She was a hard breeder and only had two foals, Stilts and his sister, which they still own. The dam went on to be a nurse mare for numerous dressage babies before having to be put down due to the uncontrollable pain due to her injury. I wish I had trailer load of horses just like him :)

My first horse Buck had a bit of a surprising history. He first started out as a barrel prospect then was trained to calf rope. Here comes the surprising part. He was sold then to Jerome Schneeberger and was used at the NFR. What year? I don't know. Anyway, Buck then was sold because had some conformation issues. Then he stood in a corral for about 2 years and we came up with him. So for the next few years, he was my first barrel horse. He died a happy death here on this ranch. <3

When I bought my guy I looked up his tattoo and found out he's sire was horse of the year, and his grandsire's in the pacing fall of fame. I got ahold of his breeder who was very upset that I had him, as he had been expected to be the best pacer ever and had sold for 15000 as a yearling. She wasn't too happy to hear he was gelded, out of racing due to injury, and that I had bought him for 700 a bit over a year after he went for 15000.
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According to my husband, his horse is the only son of some awesome halter QH named Reflective. I'm not into QHs, so his name means nothing to me. I don't know his registered name, but Kid belonged to his neighbor who is a big shot lawyer and has lots of money horses. He had bred to Reflective and got this colt and entered him in some halter futurity and planned to sale him for really big money. At the show he coliced and was unable to show. The neighbor got mad, brought him home, and just turned him out. My husband's dad noticed that he wasn't doing anything with him (and he is a fine horse) so he asked about buying him and he was sold for not much of nothing. He bought him for my husband (who was a kid then), broke him to ride, and they went on to win a pretty good bit of money with him in halter, western pleasure, and roping as well as some money brought in studding him out. He's in his mid 20's, I'm guessing, now and is just a lazy lump out in the pasture. He was gelded over 10 years ago so he's just living the easy life. He's fun though, and has the most expressive personality.

I found out recently that before I got Kitty, she had only 90 days training and then stood in a field for a year and was only ridden twice in that time period. Once of which she bucked her rider off. All in all, she's doing pretty awesome as far as training goes right now.

My neighbor gave me my gelding for free, and it just so happens that they bought him from the man that we used to do business with and bought three mares from, which happened to be my first horse, and both of my sisters' first horses. It was just interesting to find that little connection, lol.
It also happens that after I had had him for a year, I found out why his wife- who the horse had been for- kept giving me a funny look when I talked about how great he was... Apparently, they were getting rid of him because he bucked her off and she cracked her skull open. That's a nice thing to find out after a year... I have quite a few guardian angels, lol. That's my boy's 'interesting' past.

One of my horses Kiddo, was sold to a lady from a feed lot in Nevada. He was going for 10 cents a pound. We bought him as a yearling from that lady for 600$ as she'd done alot of training with him. Plus my dad did her taxes to cover the cost.

The information I got is suspect due to some inconsistancies, but considering that I keep finding more and more old scars all over her, maybe not all of Thelma's story is false.

The story I got was this:
Thelma was born on a breeding farm in MN 24 years ago. This farm was well known (my trainer showed against them before years ago) and they had nice horses. There was, apparently, something that happened with the care on the farm and some of the horses were starved, while others were properly cared for.
The horses were seized and put up for auction. The lady that I got this information from went to buy some specific horses, but ended up putting in bids on Thelma and her full older sister, Melody. She won them and took them home with her to WI.

At the time, she said that they were barely halter broken, wild, and skinny. The lady is a breeder of Pintabians and later bred Thelma and her sister. She says that Thelma had five babies, but only registered one (Which I found! She's in Canada.) due to the others not having enough white like she wanted. So I have no hope of finding them.

She later sold Thelma and Melody to a small preservation breeder on the IL/WI border. Thelma has silent heats, her stallion is older with bad hocks and a big attitude in the breeding shed, so Thelma did not have any more babies. She sat for 7 or so years and was a pasture puff until her 22nd year, when I came along and put her back to work. (evil laugh) >

Now, the only mystery that still surrounds Thelma, is when and who broke her to ride. LOL. Yeah, only something as small as that.

I am nearly certain that it was the pintabian breeder, as the lady I got her from said that she was told that Thelma was broke and had even done an expo at the Midwest horse fair with her pintabian filly.

The pintabian breeder is steadfast that it wasn't her and that Thelma never did any expo. And I do not see the lady that I got her from having a middle aged mare that she intended to breed, broke. She doesn't show and she doesn't ride much. Yet, I have a VERY well broke mare. She knows more than I do. My trainer is going to mess with her for me and see what she really knows. We are very curious.

So, there is the mystery of who broke this mare (very well) and why aren't they admitting it?

*sigh* Horse people are wierd.