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Many, many years ago in the
land of Pennsylvania, a young boy longed for a colt to raise but due to
hard times and a large family his father felt they could not afford
it. Animals were for work, food, for sale, not for play.
A number of years later a
young girl in the land of Oklahoma fell in love with a palomino named
Trigger. Feeling quite certain Roy and Trigger would whisk her away from
her fourth grade class where she could be a cowgirl forever. Too bad for
her, Roy married Dale and Trigger had a thing for Buttermilk!
Years passed and the dreams
of these youngsters diminished until one day they saw an Arabian mare - in
foal no less and for sale. With a rented trailer, three excited kids and
an empty savings account they loaded Tarita up and took her to her new
home - the OK Corral in the heart of Los Angeles. Several days later, the
stable had a horse show. It was a family decision to show the world our
beautiful 15 year old pregnant mare. Mom, Patt was the head groom, Dad,
Dick was the head trainer and the three little kids were the cheering
squad. Patt took her grooming kit and began work, clipping Tarita's bridle
path with fingernail scissors, whiskers with nail clippers and shining her
feet with Vaseline. We brushed her shiny coat, that had never been bathed,
and she was ready to go. Dick in his chambray shirt, bell bottom jeans,
cowboy hat and boots was to ready to show! One thing - Tarita did not
walk, she did not trot, she just circled and flapped her lips, and with
each circle her hooves collected more dirt from the Vaseline shine, so
that by the time she entered the arena she had feet the size of an
elephant! But in the end, they exited the arena with a blue ribbon and
then another. What a day!
The following year 1977 we
moved to some land in Nevada and built. We were still in love with the
horses but our cheering squad had lost their enthusiasm for cleaning
stalls and thus began an adventure that has now spanned 30 years and is
still going strong.
Several years after we
moved here we tired of breeding to the stallion across the lake and began
our search for a stallion worthy enough to breed our now three mares to. A
friend invited us to Santa Rosa to see a young colt not quite 2 years old.
We saw him and visions of Trigger and any other colt vanished from our
minds. We were in love, our souls were touched and our saving account was
empty again, as we had purchased the first share in the prettiest horse we
had ever seen.
He was destined to put us and
many other folks on the map - his name was FAME VF+ and that is where our
story really begins…
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