Meeting my horse of a life time...

Hello everyone! 

Okay so I've been trying to think of some ideas for blogs and then it occurred to me that I haven't actually wrote a blog about horses yet which seems strange as they are one of the biggest parts of my life! So for my first 'horsey style' blog I thought I'd tell mine and my gorgeous horse Summers’ story. I may also write another blog soon about my horse riding story but for now I'd like to tell you all about my horse as she is a massive part of who I am, (hence the name, MolandSum) and I love her to bits! 

I've decided to write 2 parts as we have a very long story and I think a 20000 word essay would not be very appealing!! Lol. So here is part one, viewing and bringing my girl home! 

So when I first viewed Summer I actually already had two other horses and I wasn't particularly looking to buy a third just yet until one of my others had sold. I was scanning Preloved as I did every day just to get an idea of what was for sale and prices etc when I came across Summers’ sisters advert. She was advertised as backed and rode away the previous year however needed starting from scratch. She caught my eye as she was quite local and I was looking for a project, (I've worked with project horses all my life as I was very into natural horsemanship at the time and still to this day love working with youngsters, they're so rewarding!). Anyway as I was checking out the advertiser and messaging the lady, I realised she actually had two adverts. The second was Summer who was named Chloe at the time. She was slightly bigger and finer than her sister and a year younger. Advert title was 'unhandled/untouched 3yo filly'. This really caught my eye. The more I read and the more I saw her pictures the more I fell in love so I then messaged the advertiser again and asked to view both her horses. I'd started horses from scratch before however Id always been paid to work with other people's horses, Id never broke a horse in purely for myself so I could not wait to see 'Chloe'! 

When me and Summer first met!

I took my dad and my friend Hannah along to see the horses the following weekend. As soon as I went to the gate of the huge field the fillies were in, a beautiful bay youngster with a wonky, white blaze down her huge face charged all the way down to the gate and slam-dunked right into it. She stretched her head over to me and I literally knew from that moment she was the one for me, (I didn't actually know which of the two horses she was at the time). Poppy her half sister then came over too and we were able to clip a lead rope on their headcollars and lead them a few steps out the field. We couldn't take them far or do anything with them as my girl wasn't handled at all and hadn't had much human contact... Saying that, she wasn't at all scared of humans or her surroundings, she actually dragged me around all over the place, was constantly licking and ferreting about with my clothes and my face and hair. I completely fell in love. We put them both back in the field and watched them move and play with each other and as cliché as it sounds,  I knew she was going to be mine. 

So we came away to think about it and it turned out that my friend was actually very interested in Summers half sister (who I originally wanted to view) but she wasn't looking for a horse either. To cut a long story short, she managed to convince her parents to buy Summers half sister so we could then buy both the horses and get a discount. This was fantastic news as it meant that the horses didn't have to be split up as well as move to new surroundings by themselves. So we arranged to pick them both up straight away. 

Summer was the first horse I brought with my own money so it was such an amazing feeling to turn up and buy my very own horse for the first time by myself! 

Summer loaded straight away with no issues despite the fact she hadn't even been handled. Her sister refused to load so Summer travelled the short trip home all by herself yet she didn't cause a fuss at all!

I found out after paying for her that Summer was sadly unregistered but the people I brought her off actually bred her themselves so all history was known. Summer is half Warmblood half Appaloosa so quite interesting breeding lines :) She was bred and left in the field to be a baby with her half sister and brother until she was rising 4 when they decided to sell her so she could go on and get an education! She stood around 15/15.1hh at the time, now nearly 2 years on she is around 15.3hh hopefully to round off at 16hh. Buying her was the best decision I've ever made however it certainly hasn't been a walk in the park. She's very opinionated however I love her for it, she has the most honest and sweet nature ever :) 

Summer loose jumping aged 4!

I decided to change her name for a few reasons. Her passport name is 'Summer Time Chloe'. She was called this because she was born on the 7th of June 2009 which was on her owners sisters birthday. Her name is Chloe so they named the horse after her. The 'Summer Time' part was because she was born in the Summer rather than Spring time like most foals. 

I also lost a horse that was very important to me named Summer the year before buying my girl so I decided to call her Summer instead of Chloe for short as this name meant a lot to me but I also wanted it to relate to her passport name :) 

Anyway this is mine and Summers 'first meeting' story in a nutshell. Part 2 will be a brief summary of our journey so far together so hopefully if I get a good response from this blog then part 2 will come next!! 

Me and Summer a few weeks ago! 

Thank you all for your support and kind comments on my previous blogs, I hope you're all enjoying them. Would love to know how many people are new and how many have read all of my blogs so please feel free to comment below or add me on Facebook for 'Summer updates', my name is Molly Folland!

Summers flatwork aged 5 :)

Speak again soon, Mol and Sum! xxx