![\"\"](\"http:\/\/wendywolfe.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/01\/mariah-at-3mo.jpg\" "\\"Mariah")
<\/a>She was beautiful and full of a presence that seemed much too grand for a mere three months old.\u00a0 I felt an instant connection to her but didn’t understand why.\u00a0 Over the next two days I went back to the barn to see her several times.\u00a0 Finally, on the last day she clearly said to me, “You know we are supposed to be together”.\u00a0 “You need to find her and talk to her about buying me”.\u00a0 What?\u00a0\u00a0Although I had been communicating for a year or so consciously at this point, this conversation took me by surprise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My rational mind played it out like this.\u00a0 I had no desire for a second horse…sure I knew I would need another horse in a few years to keep Smokey company but I NEVER considered getting a baby and certainly not a mare ;-)).\u00a0 I didn’t even know if she was for sale.\u00a0 She was a black Appaloosa and Tennesse Walker cross, although without any color, not registerable.\u00a0 Her sire was a very, very tall spotted TWH.\u00a0 It was a crap shoot as to whether she would gait or not.\u00a0 Nothing about any of this made any logical sense.\u00a0 And yet, I could not stop thinking about her.\u00a0 I felt her in my heart, not my head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When \u00a0I approached the woman who owned the ranch to see if she was for sale she told me her name was Mariah, she had been born on a full moon, on a very windy night.\u00a0 She came sooner than they expected so she was born outside with no humans around.\u00a0 She might consider selling her.\u00a0 She would need to figure out what she had invested in order to determine her price.\u00a0 We exchanged contact information.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next week the phone call came.\u00a0 The owner had considered her investment and determined a price.\u00a0 Let me tell you it was not<\/em> reasonable.\u00a0 This little filly was “grade” and not yet a weanling but she was asking close to what I paid for Smokey.\u00a0 I told her I would think about it and get back to her.\u00a0 Actually, the money wasn’t an issue.\u00a0 Even though it wasn’t market value, it was something I could easily afford.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the next week my logical mind was in a battle with my heart.\u00a0 Back and forth I went.\u00a0 I don’t remember such a struggle over a decision.\u00a0 Finally, a good friend of mine who had listened to me go back and forth with this for a week said to me, “BUY HER”.\u00a0 Why, I asked?\u00a0 “Because everytime you talk about her your entire being lights up.\u00a0 To me that means you need to do this…set your logic aside and\u00a0listen to your heart”.\u00a0 I knew she was\u00a0right.\u00a0 And just so I didn’t back out she followed me to my office while I\u00a0made the call to tell the owner that I would accept her price.\u00a0<\/p>\n Apparently I called the owners bluff.\u00a0\u00a0She\u00a0purposely set the price high because she wasn’t sure she wanted to\u00a0part with her.\u00a0 She too felt her\u00a0presence and knew there was something special about\u00a0this filly.\u00a0\u00a0 But she agreed to the sale and in about another two months,\u00a0Mariah would be with me.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Now you might be expecting me to tell you that she is most wonderful horse I’ve ever known and we ride off onto the trails until sunset.\u00a0 Not the case.\u00a0 She has been the most challenging horse I have ever known.\u00a0 And one of the greatest blessings in my life.<\/p>\n When she arrived at the stables where I was boarding Smokey, she first needed to be quarantined in a stall for two weeks.\u00a0 She kicked a friend who was feeding her the first day she arrived.\u00a0 The owner explained that she had come out of her mother kicking.\u00a0 She kicked out at many people, but never, ever me.\u00a0 Difficult as she was, we had a heart connection that was amazingly strong and I knew she trusted me.<\/p>\n During the day I would take her out to give her some outside time in the stallion pen.\u00a0 I remember sitting there one day waiting for a friend to come join me.\u00a0 When my friend arrived she told me we needed to listen to the news on the radio.\u00a0 Something had happened in New York.\u00a0 A plane had crashed into a building.\u00a0 That was September 11th.\u00a0 My friend and I listened to the radio and both decided we needed to get back to our homes and our families.\u00a0 I’m sure all of you know exactly where you were that day as well.<\/p>\n After her quarantine she was moved to the pasture with a group of other weanlings.\u00a0 Mariah continued to be a challenge and was quickly gaining a bad reputation so I moved her to Tracy Porter’s place near Janesville.\u00a0 I knew that she would be handled daily and would live outside in a mixed herd. There she was allowed to be a horse and I was able to work with her with guidance from Tracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n As difficult as she was, I was never afraid of her.\u00a0\u00a0 One day, while working with her in the round pen, she reared strait up directly in front of me.\u00a0 She could have come down and killed me I suppose, but I knew she wouldn’t.\u00a0 I understood because of our connection that she thought she and I should play the rearing game like Smokey and Nails did.\u00a0 I had to laugh.\u00a0 And then of course I sent her out to let her know that wasn’t what I was looking for from her.<\/p>\n Her first experience with the farrier was a scene from the farrier’s course of “how to be patient with a young horse”.\u00a0 She started kicking towards him before he even got close.\u00a0 Shortly after that I began learning how to do a natural trim myself.\u00a0 With guidance from my teacher, I trimmed her hooves.\u00a0 It wasn’t easy to trim a moving target but she never kicked at me and eventually she stood still.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mariah\u00a0has taught me more about horsemanship than the many clinics, books and\u00a0videos I have learned from.\u00a0 More importantly, she has taught me the importance of having clear boundaries and how to be in my power while remaining quiet.\u00a0\u00a0 She demands, that I stay in the present moment whenever I am with her…and that all attention is on her.\u00a0 And even when she is in one of her “moods” I can feel that strong heart connection.\u00a0 Just because she may not want\u00a0to do what I want to do that day, I feel her love.<\/p>\n Our journey continues and I have many more lessons to learn with her.\u00a0 My greatest wish for all of you is that you too are blessed with a teacher like Mariah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was the early summer of 2001 when I first met her.\u00a0 I had gone with a couple of friends north to a horsey B&B of sorts.\u00a0 We had a quest house to ourselves and trails nearby to ride our horses.\u00a0 Smokey was there with me along with his BFF Nails. The guest house was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-gallery","entry","gs-1","gs-odd","gs-even","gs-featured-content-entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wendywolfe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>