Bolder

On Saturday the 28 of September is a monumental day for me, I bought my first horse! I have been riding horses, other peoples’, for 10 years and I thought it was about time to have a project of my own. After working for 6 months at an Italian restraint in Poulsbo I finally saved up a good chunk of money for the purchase. I found Got To Gold Bold “Bolder” on dreamhorse and contacted the owners and the next weekend drove four hours over to Eastern Washington (Zillah) to see this horse. Bolder is 7 years old Quarter horse, AQHA registered, with perfect conformation, fantastic build, and filled out nicely. I fell in love with this palomino. After a couple weeks of discussing this with my family and I found a barn to board him at and someone to trailer him over here. So now here’s where the story really begins.  

Kayla, a member on my WAHSET team, and her dad were willing to devote their entire day to getting my horse. We start our journey at 9am and head out in the pouring down rain towards E.WA hoping for brighter skies. MaryLynne, Bolder’s previous owner decided to meet us in Cle Elum so we wouldn’t have to drive the extra 1.5 hours. Already dropping a starved horse off, doing a favor for one of Joe’s friends, in Cle Elum we asked MaryLynne to meet us at the place were dropping the horse off. Sounded like a great time efficient plan.

We turn onto the last road and astonished by the rich farm lands and the wealthy houses. We started searching for the house numbers knowing the starved horse should do well in this area. After a couple miles down the road we saw the correct number on the left belonging to a paved driveway going up into the trees. By the time we had put it together that it was the correct place we had already passed it so we turned around in someone’s driveway and found it again. Once the starved horse was put to pasture with some old buddies we turned our focus to the new horse, my Bolder.

About twenty minutes after arriving I received a call from MaryLynne; she also had passed the driveway. She had borrowed her brother-in-law’s truck and was pulling her four-horse horse trailer with it and my baby was in the back. I reassured her that she did pass the correct driveway and we had done the same thing. As I was walking down the driveway, still pouring rain, I told her just to turn around in someone’s drive way and to head back this way and I would meet her down on the road.

It seems to me, nothing ever goes smoothly. After five minutes of standing in the rain MaryLynne call once again “Lily, I’m stuck. I tried to turn around in an open field and I’m not used to all this rain… so I’m stuck in mud about 2-3 miles down the road.” During this conversation I start hiking back up the driveway. When the news is told we unhook Joe’s truck find some chains and ropes then head out to find her.

We came across her in the middle of a dirt field. She wasn’t actually stuck so it wouldn’t have been too terrible to get her out but her front bumper was about six feet away from a ditch that dropped six or so feet down. At this point we realized the truck she was using was only two wheel drive, not helpful in this situation.

At first Joe just tries driving the truck and trailer but the tires only spin. The next step was to take the horse out and then unhook the trailer and just work on getting the truck out. Throwing some gravel under the back tires with Kayla and I pushing. A couple minutes later the truck tottered away sliding through the muddy ground, luckily avoiding the ditch. But leaving Kayla and I covered in mud from the back tired flinging it up at us.

Now for the trailer, it was almost jackknifed from the awkward turn so that made it much more difficult to maneuver up too. Joe’s new Ford had a hitch on the front so that seemed like a splendid idea to have him nose his 4x4 up to the trailer and then pull it out strait. I was directing him up to the hitch and to our dismay there was about a four inch difference between the ball and hitch and the trailer couldn’t go up any higher, so that plan was shut down. We then put the hitch on correctly and I backed him up to the trailer and we got it all hooked up. His 4x4 gladly pulled the trailer out of the mud and we were finally free. After Loading the horse up and we headed back to our meeting place to discuss paper work.

Finally all the trailers were hooked back to the proper trucks and we were ready to load. I popped him in the trailer and tied him up. He has never been loaded like a regular horse because he was super spoiled so that became an issue. As I was moving to close the divider he decided to try and back out. Failing to move far he freaked out, I not wanting to be trapped in a small enclosed metal area with flailing horse limbs jumper out. When I turned around his legs were strait u in the air. I don’t know how he twisted himself enough to fall down, but he did. After getting back up we were able to secure him in the trailer. I hope he only needed one flip-in-the-trailer event because I don’t want to deal with it again.

After loading, the three hour ride home was uneventful and we arrived at his new home safely. He has now been at his new home for 2 days and is settling in nicely.