A Pony Tale, Part II

After Kara's and my previous attempt at finding a pony, I did some more research online and found a place much closer to us in Cleveland, TN called Horsenmule.  I had a nice phone conversation with the owner, Keith, and he agreed to look for a pony for us among his contacts.

When a week passed and Keith had only found one possibility, which he promised to check out, I decided to look some more.  I got on craigslist yesterday and checked the classifieds, too.  There are a few ponies out there, but most of them aren't rideable.  When the owners want to trade them for something gentle enough for their grandkids, you know this isn't the one!

Then yesterday we got a text from Keith that a friend had brought him a pony we might be interested in.  So today Kara and I made the trip to Cleveland, a mere hour away.  That was lots better than four hours!  AND we didn't get lost!  We also got to drive through some gorgeous countryside.

Once we got there, we got to meet Julie.  She's 13 hands, although she's so petite in build that she seems smaller.  She's very sweet and happily ate carrot from our hands.  She's about 4 years old, so definitely young enough to be trained to do what we want her to do.  She has been saddled, although the only saddle they had there was too big to be cinched up.  So Kara rode her bareback with a halter in the round pen, and she did great, even on the muddy, slippery footing.

 Afterwards we had a little photo op.

We were definitely trying not to hold our breath this time, having learned the hard way that it's not that easy to find a nice pony.  Keith assured us that if we didn't want this pony, he'd keep looking.  But he also told us that--although he's not normally a fan of ponies--he likes this one and thinks she's very sweet.

We agree!  Get used to the photo ops, Julie--this is going to happen a LOT where you're going!

And this, by the way, is Julie's theme song which we couldn't stop singing all the way home! We're sure our Julie will get this kind of screaming rave review from the grandkids!