Mississippi's Story

Equinerescuefrance.org - Full Story

Posted by WW on May 30, 2017

Pine Lodge Mississippi is a 1998 NZ gelding, bred by Keith Galpin from the purebred Arabian Australian imports Bremervale Serena, and the sire Bremervale Legacy.

n 2001, Donna Fox went to Galpin’s stud to look for a riding horse, but he had nothing suitable. As chance would have it, Galpin was ‘passing by’ Donna’s place a few weeks later, and he had Miss on board, convinced that the unbroken 3yo was the horse for Donna! Galpin was travelling south, and said that if she really didn’t want him, he’d pick him up again on the way home. Mississippi was a striking individual from an early age, so there’s no Sherlock awards being handed out for guessing that the horse stayed put! He was too pretty be a gelding hence his name was shortened to Miss, and true to form he quickly established himself as the best boy!

I’ll let the rest of his story run in Donna’s words. Her respect and pride in him shine out, and we can’t imagine how devastated she was to find he’d being chucked on the scrap heap.

‘All my Arabian horse friends said he would be too much for me, and he was. Way too much horse. However, he did not have a dirty bone in his body and I only ever experienced one buck when his tail got wet crossing a river. He never threw me off but we did crash and burn a few times. He never kicked or bit or had any vices other than he completely believed he was royalty and should be first in line for everything. He took the attitude right from the start, that he knew it all and if I only I would just sit there and let him get on with it – hence the odd crash.

Miss was like a Border Collie, he was born to work. He just wanted to get out there and do it, skip, all the fancy educating and get on with the job. He was very quick and easily bored. Mentally he had to be engaged all the time. Left to his own devices he would think he knew it all and take shortcuts. He was a horse that you had to have a full riding partnership with, you could not go to off in a daydream. He was very easy to read, and when happy would blow thru his nose at every stride, in this odd sort of soft puffy snort. He was a talkative horse...

Read more here:
http://www.equinerescuefrance.org/2017/05/mississippis-story/