The picture is from where we boarded horses in Auburn. Part of me wishes we still would've bought that place but the timing wasn't right then I haven't had a chance to take new photos and everyone is blowing out their winter coats and look ridiculous right now. So, it'll have to wait.
My last post was kinda scatter brained and that's mostly because at the time I was in a brain fog and overwhelmed by the list I was creating of things I needed to get caught up on. It's not that they were big things, but a bunch of little things that on paper seemed to be bigger than they were. Anyway, it's 2023! We're officially been Guiding Light Arabians for 4 and a half years and into our third breeding season. We brought Destiny (Eurespeciale) home in November 2018. It feels like it's been so much longer and in some ways it has been because for me, this adventure started many MANY years prior. I was introduced to horses and specifically Arabian horses in 1992 and became "obsessed." I say obsessed in quotes because back then it was considered an obsession, now a days it's a hyper-fixation associated with my ADHD and Autism. Back then I had this grand dream of owning 1000 acres with world champion horses that traveled to foreign countries and competed and won ribbons and I was going to do it ALL. That dream has changed a bit because as I've gone through life, I've lived through experiences and learned things that have forced me to become more focused and less about doing it all. I am only one person after all.
I feel like this is important to point out to everyone because plans and programs change depending on a multitude of reasons, and I feel like the amount of change that goes on in a program deals with the amount of mentoring and/or idols that a person has to look up to in the horse industry. I feel that if I would've better mentors when I was in my teens, I would've been more successful in the early 2000s when I went about purchasing my first horses. On the flip side of that thought though, because I lacked better mentors going through my first years in the horse industry, I've become really good at finding information on my own and become more open minded about others and their programs and interests. This is important because I feel like a lot of people who are mentored by groups of trainers or breeders will fall in footsteps behind them, whether they fully believe the practices or not. Even now I get criticized about my horses for one reason or another, it's just now after 30 years it no longer bothers me. I know my animals and my program well enough to know that I'm making a difference.
So what is my program? Well it's a mixed bag of a lot of cool things. The program is based mostly off mare lines, and a lot of the lines on both sire and dam lines are lines that are either limited or are no longer producing. My guilty pleasure is "last of the line" horses and in that way, our program is sort of a preservation program. I don't focus primarily on one type of horse although the program is pretty heavy in Polish lines as they are my favorite and the ones I'm most knowledgeable about in their history in the Arabian horse world. Some of the names on their pedigrees are recognized world wide but not all. This is because I spend more time looking at conformation and mental soundness than just names on paper. I know that horses can live into their 30s and I want to make sure that whatever I produce will provide decades of happiness, not horses that break down or are so hot that only experienced people can handle them. I really do try my best to look at the FULL picture and not just marketing value of these animals as the reality is breeding is not something you easily make money with. So, I just choose to enjoy the process and not worry about making tens of thousands of dollars.
All that said, the most important thing to me in my program is the mental state and hotness of my horses and the program. As someone who has differently-abled kids interested in the horses, and myself who has genetic disorders that makes handling hotter horses dangerous, it is of the utmost importance to me that my breeding program have quieter horses that aren't as quick to fight or flight from things that frighten them. That's not to say they aren't hot enough to flip their tails up and snort and blow in a pasture but they are also quiet enough for kids to pass out at their feet. While I still want my horses to be known at least throughout the US and Canada, my focus has shifted more towards providing lifetime companions that people, especially children, can enjoy and animals that have a better chance of finding long term homes. Also I love the idea of my horses being in youth programs so that's a goal I have now I didn't have before.
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