Our first gaited mare came into our lives with neither our knowledge nor intent.  Like most new horses owners, we quickly realized that one horse is not enough - you want to be able to ride with someone.  With this lingering in the back of our minds, we passed a, "Horse for Sale" sign at the end of a dusty farm road and turned in.

A kid-trained chestnut mare was led out.  Free grazing on rich Wisconsin grass hadn't done much for her figure, but she was gentle and kind. Why we thought we could afford a second horse is a mystery; her price was $150, two weeks pretax income at the time in our lives.  A week later, we returned with a trailer.  Regrettably, Sundown, as she was called, wasn't anxious to leave.  After encouragement, persuasion and coercion had failed, the farmer brought on brute force.  He built a wire chute to the trailer's opening then put a front-end loader behind her and pushed.  At first she began to condense - shorter, shorter, collapsing accordion like until she gave up and popped into the trailer.  

We were living in one-third of a rented home in a horse compound owned by an arabian horse breeder.  In exchange for work, he allowed Shenandoah, my spotted first pony, and Sundown (Sunny now) to live on the grounds.  Sunny taught us that appearances were deceiving and that, as Mark Rashid said much later in the title of one of his books, a good horse is never a bad color. 

Sunny looked like (and this may actually be charitable) an army tank when she was at rest - solid, formidable, and not a creature of grace.  When she began to move, though, all that changed.  At sale, we had been told she was half quarter horse and half american saddle breed, but we knew little of breeds, so we didn't know what that meant.  Transformed, she would move into her gait and carry us along as though on a magic carpet, we would say.  Her whole demeanor changed as she radiated  confidence, grace, and - to our surprise - breeding.

In addition to looking lovely, she had a sweet and generous spirit.  She gave Tom and I the energetic, spirited rides we needed.  Only once did I doubt her, but it was unfairly.  While riding bareback at a canter, a barbed wire fence appeared just ahead.  Not sure if we could make the turn, I asked for the turn but prepared to jump, hoping she saw and could clear the wire.  Just at that moment all that quarter horse genetic programming came through and we wheeled to the left - I think she had been concerned, too, about my intentions.  While she gave us an exciting ride, she was gentile with children.  A five-year-old neighbor girl Piper enjoyed riding her from time to time.  For her, Sunny would move out quietly and neck rein impeccably, never balking or trying to choose her own direction.  She took her job as baby sitter seriously.  

Regrettably, we came to the point where someone in our family had to quit eating.  We felt that, as the wage earners, it should not be us, so we put an ad in the paper for Sundown and Shenandoah, our first horses. Shenandoah went home with a man who had little boys and Sundown returned to a farm.  We sadly said goodbye to our first horse, our first teachers.