Tales of Triumph!

To help get everyone excited and back in the BreyerFest spirit, we are introducing a miniseries that will share stories of five horses who, in their own way, triumphed against all odds. Follow along as these inspiring stories are told firsthand by the horses themselves!

Daring to Be Different

"I started my journey just like any other horse would. I grew up with my mom and life was good. When it was time for me to leave her side, I got to go live with a group of other young horses that looked just like me! Unlike my pasture mates I didn’t have a human come and take me home, and as I watched my friends leave, I became worried my human would never find me. Four long years passed by. I felt like I was put on the back burner and did not get handled much, making me even more nervous about never finding my human; until one day someone came walking up to me in my pasture! This human said they came looking for a horse just like me!

I was nervous at first, but my new human said they saw so much potential in me and started my training. It was hard work and they helped me learn so many different things like long-lining, in-hand work, dressage, western, trail and obstacle courses, liberty, and even jumping! My human called me a jack of all trades, but I really liked to jump and had the most fun doing that. My new human must have thought so too and even said I had perfect knees and form, whatever that meant. Once I had enough practice jumping my human decided they wanted to show the rest of the world what I could do.

My human was so excited to start taking me to horse shows and I did not want to let them down. However, when I started going to the shows some of the other horses were afraid of me. I didn’t understand why they were running away or just stared at me when all I wanted was to be their friend. I also heard the other horses’ humans tell my human that I shouldn’t be allowed to jump with their horses or that I would not be able to do the same things they did. They told my human I was different and that “different” was not allowed to compete at the bigger shows my human wanted to take me to. I could tell this made my human sad. I didn’t know why they were saying all those things when I had the same four legs and was able to jump just like the other horses. I even won some blue ribbons against them at some shows!

My human did not let these comments about me being different stop them from taking me to shows, and I’m glad because I was having so much fun. My human loved me, knew how talented I was, and believed I deserved to be in the show ring. In fact, they took me to more shows and told more people about me. I was happy because I loved to jump, and I could tell my human liked it too. Even though we were told at every show that I was different and did not fit in with the other horses we kept showing up and proving them wrong. My human and I kept showing those other humans that its ok to be different (even though I don’t think I am) and that we can do everything their horse can do! Sometimes we all need to dare to be different to achieve those blue ribbons in life!”