I will attach pictures sometime soon. I need to take some good ones with my phone. (though they won’t be the greatest quality =/ )
So, I have worked at a privately-owned stable for quite a few years (since I was about 10) and have gained a huge amount of trust in the horse owners. I took riding lessons the summer before I started to hang out in the barn as a little kid, so I knew a decent amount. I would help them muck out the stalls, and be the only little girl they knew that enjoyed it. I groomed the horses and helped feed them, and it wasn’t long until they let me ride one of their horses. About a year later, I was leasing a piebald Paint gelding who is 8 years old this year. He’s drop-dead gorgeous.
Jovi, so he is named, isn’t the nicest little pony in the world. (okay, he’s around 16 or 17 hands, he’s definitely not a pony) He bites, kicks, rears, bucks; he’s the devil horse, really. Definitely not an 11 year old’s dream first horse. Regardless, he’s a horse, and that was good enough for me. Plus, the best part was, I leased him for free in exchange for my work at the stables.
3 years later, I have come a long way with my beautiful hellion. 
I showed him for three consecutive years in the local fair, doing walk/trot every single year. He only threw me off once, and that was last year, when he practically when verticle and I came off after a bit of clinging. He took off after that. I was about to move on to novice, (start cantering… finally!) but I got terrible news from my dad.
He called me and said, “If we want to lease Jovi, we have to pay $150.00 a month on top of your work. They reeeally don’t want to do this to you, but they can’t afford to keep him anymore without income. They would have to sell him if not.” I hung up, broke down, and cried. After calling my best friend, when I was sobbing in her ear. Because, even though $150 is still a great deal, my family is DIRT poor, and can’t afford that at all. And without a lease, I can ride Jovi, sure, but horse camp, Fair… basically everything I did with him had to come to an end.
So, I get told that on Monday, one of my work days. I go there, though I feel betrayed. Michael, one of the owners, sees me and says “Hey, how are you?” I’m on the brink of tears, so I can hardly say “Hey,” back to him. He notices I’m broken up about this and tells me that things haven’t fallen completely in place yet, and he’ll talk to me after I’m done. He knows how poor I am, so I know that he knows that I can’t afford $150 a month.
I finish the stalls, and with almost perfect timing, Michael comes in and says, “Come in the tack room. I’ve got something for you.” I go in, he hands me a brownie. And everyone knows that when they bring you something sweet and fattening, they’ve got bad news. No matter who it is. I’m afraid at this point. But this is what he says;
“I saw you just about in tears when you came, and I felt terrible. So we all sat down at dinner and talked about it. I know you love Jovi, but, Butterfly is pretty neglected. You know how much I love her and how fun it is to ride her, but I just don’t have the time anymore. And I was thinking. There’s absolutely no way that we can not lease out a horse for money. And we have someone interested in Jovi, so we could have the money, but only from him. We’re having a hard time making ends meet, and I’ve invested $30,000-$40,000 building this barn. So if I sell the horses, everyone gets hurt, and we have an empty barn in the back. Leasing is the best thing we can do. But, you can still ride Jovi whenever you want, but you can also ride Butterfly and take her to horse camp and Fair instead of him. I would still want a sum, but only for his hay. So about $50 a month. [I can handle that just fine.] Is that better?”
Better is hardly the word. Butterfly is a buckskin paint mare. (she looks like a quarter horse… it’s weird) She’s the most versatile horse I know. She has 190 points in the paint association and can do english and western pleasure (etc.), reining, contest, jumping, and is brilliant on the trails. Jovi on the other hand could only do western pleasure. Hopping on Butterfly and doing English occasionally is extremely exciting for me. The idea of jumping and barrel racing is appealing too. Other than that, another amazing thing is, Butterfly does anything you want without a fight. I’ve never seen her with an once of bad manners after all the time I’ve spent there. She’s the kind of horse that would carry you home while knocked out on her back, or just stand there in her stall if you forget to shut the stall door and an open bag of grain is sitting by her stall door. She is AMAZING. The only problem is that she’s about 9 or 10 years older than Jovi. She’s about 17 years old. I don’t mind, because she doesn’t act like it at all. She LOVES to run, and got National Speed Horse in the paint division once. She’s SO fun to ride. Mike said he once took her for a 5 hour ride, and when he came home, she was still raring to go.
I think this was the best thing that ever could have happened to me, when I originally thought it was the worst. I worked with Butterfly for the first time today (10/30/07) and she was a DREAM! Since she loves to run so much, she was very antsy at first (that’s the only problem with her… the only time I’ve seen her misbehave is in a ring where she runs contest classes a lot and threw off her rider when she got too excited to contain herself and took off… broke a couple of the girl’s ribs… she’s not that great of a rider anyway… >:D ) but she calmed after a bit of steading walking and jogging. (I decided western for our first ride.) Then, I got brave and asked for a lope after she had a good, relaxed headset. She has the most beautiful gait! As you could imagine, she almost took off with me at first, but responded well and slowed after a bit of trying to convince me to gallop (though I was sooo tempted.) I learned how much she was being ridden she was huffing and puffing after about 8 tiny laps of a lope. She really needs a few good workouts. But, after I’m done with her, I’ll have a lean, mean, running machine. I’m excited as h***!!
So, there’s my novel of a story. When I get pictures, I’ll post all four of the stable’s horses and their details. (breed, height, name… etc.) Just because I love them so much and decided that they needed honored on my favorite sim game.
If you actually read that… thanks! 
