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Hello from California!!

2K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  JLWW 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi everyone, my name is Olivia and I am from Southern California.
Here's how I came to be where I am in the land of horses:

When I was young, I owned and rode an Arabian mare named Rhythm. I took lessons on her in the English discipline and had just began showing when I had a nasty fall. After that, I realized I had been riding the whole time to please my mom and gave up riding at the age of 7.

Fast forward 10 years. I was an FFA nerd through all of high school and had successfully raised and shown lambs all three years. When I told my teacher that for my senior year, I would raise another lamb, he suggested I get out of my comfort zone to try something new. I decided I would do an equine project, after regaining a little interest in horses over the past few years.

I contacted my neighbor, who owned about 20 horses and was always looking to sell. She informed me that my favorite horse of hers, Sawyer, had just sold. I was slightly devastated. She bought this horse as a yearling, and I had horse sat on her property every summer since she got him. In four years, I had grown quite fond of him. While upset, I reminded myself that an unbroken 5 year old was a bit out of my comfort range.

I got a call later that night, and my neighbor had decided to sell me the horse (for half of the original price) because she knew he'd be going to a good home. I was so excited and walked over right away to pick him up. I had planned on training him, riding him, and selling him the next coming fall. This would surely raise me enough money to get my American Degree, which I had worked towards for 3 yeas and was under 1,000 dollars away from.

We found a trainer in our price range, and I walked Sawyer to my neighbors 3 times a week for his training. I participated the entire time. I was the first to free lounge, ground drive, and eventually sit on him.
Long story short. I fell IN LOVE with this horse. I hadn't ride in 10 years (and wasn't the strongest rider to begin with), but I just trusted this horse and felt like he trusted me.

While learning to ride on a Green Broke horse is an EXTREMELY foolish decision, and I'd never suggest it to other riders, it did wonders for me. I learned so fast and i have had so many firsts in a short amount of time: including my first canter on a horse, first solo trail ride, first bareback trail ride, and first time swimming. We still ride twice a week with his trainer, and she's teaching me new training techniques every week to continue Sawyer's training.

Monday (2/23) will be Sawyer's 6th birthday, and Tuesday (2/24) will be our first horse-iversary!
So that's how I came to be HORSE CRAZY! It just took me finding my riding soul mate :D


Sorry that was so long, this is the fist time I've told our story and it was pretty fun :) nice to meet you all! (If anyone gets through our novel!!)
Feel free to tell me what got you 'horse crazy'.
 
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#8 ·
Thank you for wishing him a happy birthday.
He enjoyed his birthday watermelon ;) unfortunately, I pulled out his papers to look at something, turns out he was born March 2! I need to change that. He had a happy early birthday this year.
 
#11 ·
Hello back from Colorado

Hi all Horse loving Californians,
My husband and I lived in Southern CA for about 7 1/2 years, moved to Colorado about 2 1/2 years ago. I kept my gelding out in Agua Dulce, north of LA about 37 miles. Loved it out there, lots of nice horse people. Lost him in 2007, and replaced him after coming to Colorado with a paint mustang that I have had now for 2 years. I started a new forum discussion thread on Leslie Desmond Feel and Release technique just today if anyone is interested. She was based on CA for many years near Novato and now lives back east and part time in Europe.

Nice meeting you all,

Happy Trails,
 
#12 ·
Hello welcome to the forum!

I'm very jealous of where you lived and where you live now. Agua Dulce is a very nice area of LA and I always dreamed of living in colorado. Currently I am stuck in Pomona, which is a rather unattractive area of LA.

I really am fond of Leslie Desmond and Bill Dorrance's ideas on working with horses. I read their book a while ago and liked the message they had put out.

Also remember pictures of your horse are essential for being part of this forum!
 
#13 ·
Thanks

Ahh yes, I do need to put up a picture of my horse. I need to figure out how to do that... thanks for reminding me, I will do that here shortly. Yes Agua Dulce is gorgeous, I wanted to buy a horse out there real bad. Colorado is beautiful, but honestly I do miss CA a lot. I am an ocean person, so I miss that. I would like to go back to CA to live and be on the central or northern coast up by wine country. I am familiar with Pomona, I know there are a few horses out that way as well, do you have anywhere to ride or do you have to trailer your horse out to enjoy them?> Leslie goes to CA quite a bit and is there now. She flew out there just yesterday. Keep on eye on her schedule and see if you can attend a clinic sometime. Even though it might be up north or in the central part of the state, if that is too far to take your horse, you could audit it. You will get a lot just out of the audits and it is well worth it. We had one gal come from AZ this last weekend just to see Leslie and was not disappointed at all. Let me go check out this picture uploading thing. :)
 
#14 ·
The forum is a little difficult to work around in the beginning, if you have any questions feel free to ask.

The ocean does have its way of insnaring you and never letting you go. I wouldn't probably grow homesick for it as well if I ever moved away.

I have boarded a few areas around but sadly the care in this area was far from adequate. I moved around to several places and found that feeding low quality hay in small amounts was the norm for prices I could afford. My horse dropped probably 100-150 pounds while I kept him around Pomona.

Despite that there are some great areas to ride, the riverbed system that runs through east LA gives vast amount of nice trails. There are hundreds of miles or trails that were great to travel through. Supposedly you could ride all the way to Long Beach, but I never made that trek.

Currently my horse is retired in wine country with my father. ;-) Up there is very much my heart home. The people are nicer, I love the atmosphere and the land. Its not too far from the ocean and I just love it.
 
#15 ·
Wine Country

Well I did get the photo of my horse loaded, can you see it now? I also uploaded some photos into an album of some of my clients, I am an equine massage therapist, so it was fun to put a few of those horses that I had worked on in there.

Which wine country does your dad live in? We used to go to Santa Ynez and Los Ollivos a lot, I LOVE it up there. Yes lots of horses, beautiful area, nice people etc. We have also been to Carmel Valley which I love, and Salinas wineries too and Temecula actually. The only area I have not been for wine country is up near Petaluma, Sonoma, Napa. But I love the area around San Fran so I know I would love those areas too. LA was a fun place to be for a few years, enjoyed it, many great friends there, but the amount of people did get to us after awhile. I would love to move back and hope that we can someday, but would not go back to LA county, would want to move to the areas that I mentioned. Those trails though do sound cool, surprisingly there are quite a few horses in the LA area. I lived only a few short miles from the Burbank Equistrian boarding facility near Griffith Park, but preferred to keep my horse out in Agua Dulce.
 
#16 ·
I still can't find pictures of your horse, I saw the ones of your client horses.

If you want to post on the forum you can click Go Advanced, then add an attachment of the photo (click the paper clip) then upload, or you can create a profile for your horse in the horses link at the top of the page. Either way I'll keep my eyes open for your pictures.

He is actually all the way up in Lake County which is close to Napa. Way up north. I absolutely love the bay area. There are tons of people around here and it gets congested quite easily. Areas like Temecula out there are very nice though. For a while I boarded and lived farther south in Bonsall/Fallbrook area. That was nice as its very close to the ocean (about 20 minute drive) but still rural.

I was always surprised about the amount of horses in LA as well. There are huge horse communities spread through out the county. Horses in general are a very common sight.
 
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